A Price-Based Negotiation Mechanism for Distributed Collaborative Design

With an increased focus on collaborative design for success in global markets, there is a need for a negotiation mechanism for designs distributed over autonomous stakeholders. This paper utilizes the unit price of the design variables as a medium for negotiation between autonomous and self-interested design participants represented by design agents (DAs). An artificial agent—the facilitator agent (FA), maximizes the overall utility of the design as a function of the prices of the design variables, and guides the design toward global feasibility. By relating the FA's price space to the DAs' design space through price-variable curves, a negotiation platform is developed and tested.