Pursuit-Evasion Games with Complex Systems in Complex Environments

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Intellectual MeritSuccess in the proposed research plan requires progress in two fundamental issues. First, new modelsand computational tools that shed light onto the structure of the information available in distributed sensingand decision making tasks must be developed. Second, algorithms which exploit these structures to designefficient pursuit-evasion strategies must be designed. These algorithms provide robust and provable solutions to many SAN applications such as tracking. To ensure the practical applicability of these results, they will be adapted for two applications (tracking and surveillance) which can be modeled as pursuit-evasion games and implemented on a sensor-actuator network.Broader ImpactsDue to numerous applications of pursuit-evasion games, the results of this project are of interest to anumber of communities including control theory, economics and game theory in addition to the algorithmscommunity. Progress in pursuit-evasion games will help in bringing these communities closer and will leadto a richer cross-pollination of ideas. To facilitate this, the output of this research will be disseminated as amonograph. The results of this project are also directly applicable to a number of automation tasks involvingsensor-actuator networks and therefore, they will participate in the formation of the next generation ofautomation technologies through progress in distributed sensing, and decision making. In particular, theirutility will be demonstrated on a prototype system for monitoring the elderly through a collaboration withNortheast Health, located in the Samaritan Hospital (Troy, NY) which specializes in remote care technologies.The contribution of this project to the integration of research and education will be twofold: First, theexperimental pursuit-evasion game setup will be utilized to attract minority and female students from localprimary and secondary schools to new outreach programs. Half of the student population in schools adjacentto Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's campus (Troy Public High School, Troy Middle School and PublicSchool 14) are under-represented minorities. The outreach programs will include pursuit-evasion gameswhere the students will play against the experimental SAN setup. Solutions to simple pursuit-evasion gameswill stimulate the students' interests in science and mathematics. Second, a new graduate course titled"Pursuit-Evasion Games with Sensor Actuator Networks" will be developed. In this course, students willgain theoretical background and skills in distributed sensing, control, optimization and game theory; andapply these skills by testing their algorithms on the experimental setup.