Distributed Robust Seeking of Nash Equilibrium for Networked Games: An Extended State Observer-Based Approach

IEEE Trans Cybern. 2022 Mar;52(3):1527-1538. doi: 10.1109/TCYB.2020.2989755. Epub 2022 Mar 11.

Abstract

This article aims to accommodate networked games in which the players' dynamics are subjected to unmodeled and disturbance terms. The unmodeled and disturbance terms are regarded as extended states for which observers are designed to estimate them. Compensating the players' dynamics with the observed values, the control laws are designed to achieve the robust seeking of the Nash equilibrium for networked games. First, we consider the case in which the players' dynamics are subject to time-varying disturbances only. In this case, the seeking strategy is developed by employing a smooth observer based on the proportional-integral (PI) control. By utilizing the designed strategy, we show that the players' actions would converge to a small neighborhood of the Nash equilibrium. Moreover, the ultimate bound can be adjusted to be arbitrarily small by tuning the control gains. Then, we further consider the case in which both an unmodeled term and a disturbance term coexist in the players' dynamics. In this case, we adapt the idea from the robust integral of the sign of the error (RISE) method in the strategy design to achieve the asymptotic seeking of the Nash equilibrium. Both strategies are analytically investigated via the Lyapunov stability analysis. The applications of the proposed methods for a network of velocity-actuated vehicles are discussed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed methods is verified via conducting numerical simulations.