8.1.2 A Study of Applying Game Theoretic Concepts on Distributed Engineering System Design

Abstract

Abstract. This paper considers the application of game theoretic concepts to the dynamics of interactions among the designers in an engineering systems design problem under a distributed decision making environment. Among all the possible distributed frameworks, we focus on two types of frameworks in the system design field, the simultaneous and the sequential response frameworks. In the investigation of the simultaneous response framework, we apply the concepts of learning theory to construct insights into the dynamics among the designers and to address convergence and other challenges of the decentralized design problems. We use a special class of games, the potential game, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the sequential response framework which points out a prospective application of game theoretic concepts to future distributed engineering systems problems.