From Distributed Control Systems to Game Theory: There and Back Again

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed significant interest in the area of distributed architecture control systems, with applications ranging from autonomous vehicle teams to communication networks to smart grid. The general setup is a collection of multiple decision-making components interacting locally to achieve a common collective objective. While such architectures readily suggest game theory as a relevant formalism, game theory is better known for its traditional role as a "descriptive" modeling framework in social sciences rather than a "prescriptive" design tool for engineered systems. This talk begins with an overview of how game theory can be used as an effective design approach for distributed architecture control systems, with illustrative examples of distributed coordination. Inspired by new found connections, the talk continues with a discussion of how methods from systems and control can shed new light on more traditional questions in game theory, specifically regarding evolutionary games and agent based modeling.