Auction-based Agent Negotiation via Programmable Reactive Tuple Spaces

Auctions are proposed as a distributed negotiation mean, particularly useful in multiagent systems where self-interested agents compete for resources. The Internet is the most known example of environment where agents belonging to different applications exploit the available resources and services. The aim of this paper is to show how auction mechanisms can be easily implemented by using programmable reactive tuple spaces. Tuple spaces are shared repositories of messages that follow the Linda model; the addition of programmable reactivity permits to adapt the behaviour of tuple space to the application-specific requirements. In the implementation of auctions, programmable reactivity is exploited to uncouple the auction mechanisms from selling and bidding policies of the participant agents. Keyword: Internet, Auctions, Coordination, Tuple Space.