Negotiation Agents that Make Prudent Compromises and are Slightly Flexible in Reaching Consensus

The contribution of this work is designing and developing enhanced market-driven agents with the flexibility to (1) respond to changing market conditions, and (2) raise and relax trade aspirations. Previous theoretical analyses have shown that market-driven agents (MDAs) make prudent compromises by reacting to changing market situations by taking into account factors such as competition, deadlines, and trading options. This work augments the design of an MDA with three fuzzy decision controllers that guide the agent in (i) relaxing trade aspiration in face of intense negotiation pressure, and (ii) raising trade aspiration in extremely favorable markets. Results from extensive simulations conducted using an implemented testbed suggest that when compared to MDAs, agents in this work achieved (1) higher success rates in reaching deals, (2) higher average utilities, and (3) higher expected utility.