Introducing Trust Establishment Protocol in Contract Net Protocol

Contract Net Protocol (CNP) is a means to specify problem-solving communication required in a distributed multi-agent environment. Although, FIPA standardized CNP addresses most of the issues with respect to communication happening among agents in a Multi-Agent Environment (MAE), issues related to establishing trust-worthy communication amongst agents is still prevailing. This work introduces a new Trust Establishment Protocol (TEP) in CNP, thereby improving CNP. The proposed new version shall be referred to as CNTEP Architecture. Introduction of TEP in existing CNP would help in ensuring truthfulness of agents which is crucial for open, dynamic and heterogeneous multi-agent systems.