Distributed Negotiation for Reaching Agreement among Reluctant Players in Cooperative Multi-Agent Systems

In this paper we propose a distributed negotiation framework that allows a set of cooperative agents to find a common ground with their neighbors while attempting to modify their initial opinion by the least possible amount. Based on such a framework, we develop a distributed agreement approach where the effort spent in the local agreement reflects in the relevance of the agents in a weighted consensus process. In particular, we assume that players whose ideas happen to satisfactory mediate the standpoint of their interlocutors will end-up being more influential in the overall decision-making process. We conclude the paper by applying the proposed methodology in the context of distributed data aggregation scenarios, as a way to mitigate the effect of outliers (e.g., faulty sensors).