2,149 research outputs found
Looking at Mean-Payoff through Foggy Windows
Mean-payoff games (MPGs) are infinite duration two-player zero-sum games
played on weighted graphs. Under the hypothesis of perfect information, they
admit memoryless optimal strategies for both players and can be solved in
NP-intersect-coNP. MPGs are suitable quantitative models for open reactive
systems. However, in this context the assumption of perfect information is not
always realistic. For the partial-observation case, the problem that asks if
the first player has an observation-based winning strategy that enforces a
given threshold on the mean-payoff, is undecidable. In this paper, we study the
window mean-payoff objectives that were introduced recently as an alternative
to the classical mean-payoff objectives. We show that, in sharp contrast to the
classical mean-payoff objectives, some of the window mean-payoff objectives are
decidable in games with partial-observation
Positional Determinacy of Games with Infinitely Many Priorities
We study two-player games of infinite duration that are played on finite or
infinite game graphs. A winning strategy for such a game is positional if it
only depends on the current position, and not on the history of the play. A
game is positionally determined if, from each position, one of the two players
has a positional winning strategy.
The theory of such games is well studied for winning conditions that are
defined in terms of a mapping that assigns to each position a priority from a
finite set. Specifically, in Muller games the winner of a play is determined by
the set of those priorities that have been seen infinitely often; an important
special case are parity games where the least (or greatest) priority occurring
infinitely often determines the winner. It is well-known that parity games are
positionally determined whereas Muller games are determined via finite-memory
strategies.
In this paper, we extend this theory to the case of games with infinitely
many priorities. Such games arise in several application areas, for instance in
pushdown games with winning conditions depending on stack contents.
For parity games there are several generalisations to the case of infinitely
many priorities. While max-parity games over omega or min-parity games over
larger ordinals than omega require strategies with infinite memory, we can
prove that min-parity games with priorities in omega are positionally
determined. Indeed, it turns out that the min-parity condition over omega is
the only infinitary Muller condition that guarantees positional determinacy on
all game graphs
Average-energy games
Two-player quantitative zero-sum games provide a natural framework to
synthesize controllers with performance guarantees for reactive systems within
an uncontrollable environment. Classical settings include mean-payoff games,
where the objective is to optimize the long-run average gain per action, and
energy games, where the system has to avoid running out of energy.
We study average-energy games, where the goal is to optimize the long-run
average of the accumulated energy. We show that this objective arises naturally
in several applications, and that it yields interesting connections with
previous concepts in the literature. We prove that deciding the winner in such
games is in NP inter coNP and at least as hard as solving mean-payoff games,
and we establish that memoryless strategies suffice to win. We also consider
the case where the system has to minimize the average-energy while maintaining
the accumulated energy within predefined bounds at all times: this corresponds
to operating with a finite-capacity storage for energy. We give results for
one-player and two-player games, and establish complexity bounds and memory
requirements.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2015, arXiv:1509.0685
Games on graphs with a public signal monitoring
We study pure Nash equilibria in games on graphs with an imperfect monitoring
based on a public signal. In such games, deviations and players responsible for
those deviations can be hard to detect and track. We propose a generic
epistemic game abstraction, which conveniently allows to represent the
knowledge of the players about these deviations, and give a characterization of
Nash equilibria in terms of winning strategies in the abstraction. We then use
the abstraction to develop algorithms for some payoff functions.Comment: 28 page
Games with Delays. A Frankenstein Approach
We investigate infinite games on finite graphs where the information flow is
perturbed by nondeterministic signalling delays. It is known that such
perturbations make synthesis problems virtually unsolvable, in the general
case. On the classical model where signals are attached to states, tractable
cases are rare and difficult to identify.
Here, we propose a model where signals are detached from control states, and
we identify a subclass on which equilibrium outcomes can be preserved, even if
signals are delivered with a delay that is finitely bounded. To offset the
perturbation, our solution procedure combines responses from a collection of
virtual plays following an equilibrium strategy in the instant- signalling game
to synthesise, in a Frankenstein manner, an equivalent equilibrium strategy for
the delayed-signalling game
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