Appointed-time Distributed Nash Equilibrium Seeking for Networked Games

In this paper, we consider distributed Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking in potential games over a multi-agent network, where each agent can not observe the actions of all its rivals. Based on the best response dynamics, we design a distributed NE seeking algorithm by incorporating the non-smooth finite-time average tracking dynamics, where each agent only needs to know its own action and exchange information with its neighbours through a communication graph. We give a sufficient condition for the Lipschitz continuity of the best response mapping for potential games, and then prove the convergence of the proposed algorithm based on the Lyapunov theory. Numerical simulations are given to verify the result and illustrate the effectiveness of the algorithm.

In this article, the prescribed-time distributed Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking problem for multicoalition games with heterogeneous general linear players is investigated. In such games, there exist multiple coalitions that consist of heterogeneous players. The players have to seek the NE of the entire coalition while being limited to access only their individual cost functions. The proposed algorithm involves a two-layer structure composed of the NE seeking part and the tracking control part. To address the challenge of global information dependency, the leader-following-based estimates are designed. The NE seeking part is designed based on the distributed estimates and concurrently performed over the weight-balanced digraphs. Subsequently, by introducing the time-varying parametric Lyapunov equation, the strategies of the players are driven to the NE solution within a manually prescribed settling time, and the prescribed-time convergence is proved. Finally, the proposed algorithm is executed on the heterogeneous coalitions made up of quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in a group formation scenario. Both the simulation and the experiment results are presented to show the effectiveness of the algorithm.

This article studies a distributed Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking problem for multiple agents of aggregative games. A novel distributed algorithm is presented to assure both fast convergence and nonovershoot performance by the combination of an accelerated method and a gradient-based NE seeking algorithm. To be specific, an accelerated method (i.e., the heavy-ball method or Nesterov’s accelerated method) is introduced in the designed algorithm for the fast convergence of agents’ strategies to the NE. Moreover, a suitable switching mechanism is proposed to improve the transient performance by switching the distributed algorithm based on the accelerated method to the gradient-based algorithm. As a result, the presented distributed algorithm is modeled by a hybrid dynamical system (HDS). The semi-globally practical convergence is established by analyzing the stability of a parameterized HDS. An example of distributed energy resources is taken to verify the presented algorithm.

This paper investigates the adaptive Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking problems for networked systems, in which the players are troubled by actuator saturation and unknown disturbance. Based on the inverse function of hyperbolic tangent function, an augmented plant is constructed and the dynamic surface control technique is utilised to deal with nonlinear characteristics brought by the actuator saturation. By introducing adaptive gains to gradient, consensus estimation and disturbance compensation parts, a fully distributed NE seeking strategy is proposed. According to the Lyapunov stability analysis, the convergence error of the adaptive NE seeking under actuator saturation and disturbance is uniformly bounded. Finally, a simulation is provided to justify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This brief studies the formation placement problems for multi-cluster system with convergent time requirements based on a time-varying Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking approach. In order to determine the placement of each agent that subject to formation constraints in each cluster within a prescribed setting time, a basic centralized time-varying NE seeking algorithm based on time transformation approach is designed. In addition, by applying a prescribed-time distributed observer, an extended distributed time-varying NE seeking algorithm is proposed. Compared with existing results, the convergence time can be appointed in advance according to specific mission requirements. Finally, the effectiveness of proposed algorithms is verified by numerical simulations.

This paper presents a study on Nash equilibrium seeking in noncooperative games within multi-robot systems, a topic of increasing importance in diverse sectors including civil, security, and military. Unlike conventional approaches where players can directly observe the actions of others, our method assumes limited visibility, where players can only communicate through an undirected and connected communication graph. We introduce a novel distributed control approach, integrating gradient play with a consensus protocol. This method facilitates effective Nash equilibrium seeking by leveraging information shared among neighboring robots in heterogeneous linear dynamic systems. The proposed solution employs a high-level distributed Nash equilibrium-seeking algorithm, serving as an optimal reference generator for each robot to track the Nash equilibrium, and an advanced output regulation technique, aiming to regulate the output (e.g., position) of the robots with respect to the obtained references. Theoretical analysis confirms the convergence of our algorithm through Lyapunov stability analysis. The effectiveness and practical applicability of our approach are validated through numerical simulations and empirical testing with physical robots, highlighting its efficacy and utility in real-world scenarios.

This article considers a distributed Nash equilibrium seeking problem, where the players only have partial access to other players' actions, such as their neighbors' actions. Thus, the players are supposed to communicate with each other to estimate other players' actions. To solve the problem, a leader-following consensus gradient-free distributed Nash equilibrium seeking algorithm is proposed. This algorithm utilizes only the measurements of the player' local cost function without the knowledge of its explicit expression or the requirement on its smoothness. Hence, the algorithm is gradient-free during the entire updating process. Moreover, the analysis on the convergence of the Nash equilibrium is studied for the algorithm with both diminishing and constant step-sizes, respectively. Specifically, in the case of diminishing step-size, it is shown that the players' actions converge to the Nash equilibrium almost surely, while in the case of fixed step-size, the convergence to the neighborhood of the Nash equilibrium is achieved. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified through numerical simulations.

In this article, a noncooperative game in which the engaged players are of double integrator-type dynamics, is investigated. The dynamics of the players are considered to be subject to unknown time-varying disturbances and unmodeled terms. Besides, the communication topology among the players suffers from attacks and time-varying communication delays. To find a Nash equilibrium for such games, a distributed robust Nash equilibrium seeking algorithm is proposed. By utilizing average dwell-time and time-ratio constraints to tackle the attacks, the closed-loop system is modeled as a hybrid system with memory. To analyze the stability of the distributed switched algorithm, a Lyapunov functional is constructed, by which we show the uniform global asymptotic stability of the equilibrium. Finally, an example is given to illustrate our results.

This article investigates the Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking problems for multicoalition games with heterogeneous general linear dynamics over unbalanced digraphs. The coalition can be regarded as a virtual player but the true decision-makers are the actual players themselves which can only access to their own cost functions. To deal with the unbalanced digraphs, the left eigenvector is estimated and its prescribed-time convergence is illuminated with the time transfer approach. Then the NE seeking part and the output regulation part are designed to adapt the dynamics of the players. The initial values of the auxiliary vectors are selected to avoid utilizing the out-degree information. The steady state of the closed-loop system is analyzed and the prescribed-time convergence is proved based on the Lyapunov method. Finally, the simulation results of both the mobile sensor connectivity game and the electricity market game are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

This paper investigates the Nash equilibrium (NE) seeking problem of the game in which the dynamics of all players are affected by external disturbances and the communication network among players may be influenced by persistent attacks. To solve this problem, a distributed robust switched algorithm is proposed. This distributed switched strategy consists of two modules: One is the internal-model based dynamics that can be used to compensate the effects caused by external disturbances; the other is gradient-based optimization module which can utilize the local information to estimate the players' decisions and dynamically seek the optimal solution. By utilizing average dwell-time and time-ratio constraints to characterize the network attacks, the proposed switched strategy is modeled into a hybrid dynamical system. Moreover, employing the hybrid systems approach, we prove that the decisions of all players can exponentially converge to the NE of the considered game. Finally, an example is provided to illustrate the theoretical results.

We address the generalized Nash equilibrium seeking problem for a population of noncooperative agents playing potential games with linear coupling constraints over a communication network. We consider a class of generalized potential games where the coupling in the cost functions of the agents is linear, i.e., $J_{i}(x_{i}, x_{-i}): =f_{i}(x_{i})+\ell_{i}(x_{-i})^{\top}x_{i}$ where $\ell_{i}$ is linear. By exploiting this special structure, we design a distributed algorithm with convergence guarantee under mild assumptions, i.e., (non-strict) monotonicity of the pseudo-subdifferential mapping. The potential of the proposed algorithm is shown via numerical simulations on a networked Nash Cournot game, where we observe faster convergence with respect to standard projected pseudo-gradient algorithms.

A payoff-based learning approach for Nash equilibrium seeking in continuous potential games

Distributed least-distance formation control for Euler–Lagrange systems: A game-based approach

In this paper, we deal with the problem of finding a Nash equilibrium for a generalized convex game. Each player is associated with a convex cost function and multiple shared constraints. Supposing that each player can exchange information with its neighbors via a connected undirected graph, the objective of this paper is to design a Nash equilibrium seeking law such that each agent minimizes its objective function in a distributed way. Consensus and singular perturbation theories are used to prove the stability of the system. A numerical example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

The problem of seeking Nash equilibrium (NE) based on aggregative games under quantization constraints is full of challenges. Although the NE seeking algorithm in continuous-time systems has been studied, this problem in discrete-time systems still needs to be solved urgently. To address this problem, three distributed algorithms are first proposed under three quantization cases, adaptive, random, and time-varying quantizations, based on doubly stochastic communication topology networks. Then, the actions of players would eventually converge to NE under the conditions of vanishing step size and strong monotonicity are proved. Moreover, the convergence rate of the three quantization cases are analyzed, respectively. Finally, numerical experiments are implemented on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) to validate the effectiveness of the proposed distributed algorithms. Comparing the convergence rates of the three proposed algorithms, the convergence effect of the adaptive quantization is better than that of the other two quantization cases.