Protocols for agent-based autonomous negotiations: A review

Autonomous negotiation needs certain protocol, a set of rules that defines the interaction boundaries between negotiating agents. This paper aims to allow readers, particularly agent-based autonomous negotiation designers to understand and differentiate various agent-based negotiation protocols. This paper reviews one-to-one, concurrent one-to-many and many-to-many negotiation protocols that are divided into general, Alternative-offers and auctions-based protocols. In total, 23 protocols are reviewed. Then, this paper discusses some limitations of current negotiation protocols. As a conclusion, there are several addressable issues arises in using the protocols in different domains. The protocols should meet negotiation objectives such as time efficiency, robustness, consistency and information sharing. © 2016 IEEE.