formalization of a voting protocol for virtual organizations
A voting protocol for decision-making in virtual organizations is presented. In an agent-based virtual organization the functions of formation, management and dissolution of the organization are passed to software processes. Each phase in this life-cycle requires decision making: an ostensibly fair way for independent agents to make decisions is to take a vote. Accordingly, this paper formalizes a protocol for voting. The emphasis is on characterising the powers, permissions, obligations and even sanctions of the voters, using a norm-governed approach to agent societies. The specification language is the Event Calculus, and its animation is informative with respect to a full implementation. It is well-known that various types of ad hoc alliance of autonomous entities require voting procedures, and a normative specification of the interactions is therefore beneficial for many aspects of self-organization and self-management.
voting virtual organizations multi-agent systems