Lecture: “Games, Decisions, and Control: A Historical Journey” by Tamer Başar

Date & Time: September 22 (Friday), 2023, 3:40 ~ 5:30 PM
Place: Seoul National University Library, Kwanjeong Building, Yang Doo Suk Hall

Almost three-quarters of a century ago, when control was emerging as a major discipline, fueled by developments in dynamic, recursive decision making, and particularly dynamic programming, a separate discipline, differential games, was being created in response to the need to develop a framework and associated solution tools for strategic dynamic decision making in adversarial environments, as an outgrowth of game theory, still in its infancy at the time. The evolution of the two disciplines—control theory, and particularly optimal control, and the theory of differential/dynamic games (DGs)—initially followed somewhat different paths, with different foci, but soon a healthy interaction between the two developed. DGs, in both zero-sum and nonzero-sum settings, enabled the embedding of control in a broader context and framework, and enriched the set of conceptual tools available to it. Particularly, an essential ingredient of DGs, information structures (who knows what and when) entered and became a mainstay in control research. On the other hand, the field of DGs itself benefitted from the mathematical tools developed for control, such as the viscosity solutions. This interaction between the two reached a climax when the issue of robustness became prevalent in control, leading among others to a comprehensive treatment of H-infinity control of both linear and nonlinear uncertain systems using the theory of zero-sum DGs. As a parallel development to the theory and applications of zero-sum DGs was that of nonzero-sum DGs, which required the introduction of additional tools and further enrichment of solution concepts, bringing along also many challenges in the characterization and computation of the associated solutions, arising because of complex strategic interactions among different entities (agents or players). More recently, as a major development, these challenges were partially overcome by going to infinite populations, creating the field of mean-field games, which again brought in strong connections to control theory, this time stochastic optimal control of systems driven also with exogenous stochastic processes. Again more recently, we see several learning tools developed in the context of adaptive control becoming relevant in multi-agent systems formulated as nonzero-sum DGs, for reinforcement learning within model-free settings.

This lecture will dwell at a high level on the parallel developments in the two fields—control and dynamic/differential games—as they impacted each other over the past three-quarters of a century, describe the present state of the art, and make projections into the future.

Tutorial lecture: Dynamic Game Theory and Selected Applications

Date & Time: September 23 (Saturday), 2023, 9:30 ~ 12:30 AM
Place: Lecture building 28 dong (자연대 대형강의동 28동), Room 303

With its rich set of conceptual, analytical, and algorithmic tools, dynamic game theory (DGT) has emerged as providing the most appropriate framework for study of multi-agent systems, capturing interactions among the agents (players) under different informational constraints when they have only partially aligned or totally conflicting objectives, or a mix of the two.  This three-part tutorial lecture will introduce in the first part salient elements of DGT, including different solution concepts, with emphasis placed on the role information structures play in existence, uniqueness, derivation, and computation of different types of equilibria, covering both finite- and infinite-population of agents as well as the case when the agents do not have full knowledge of the underlying decision-making processes. In the second part of the tutorial, selected applications will be discussed under the symmetric mode of decision making, including consensus and dissensus formations in multi-population settings. The third part will focus on the asymmetric (hierarchical) mode, allowing for the development of inducement mechanisms in scenarios where one individual acts in a way to influence the decision-making process of another individual or individuals, where the outcome could benefit all involved or only the one who has initiated the process, which has applications in incentivization and deception. The tutorial will end with a discussion of some fruitful avenues of research.

2023 Lecturer: Prof. Tamer Başar

Tamer Başar was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He received B.S.E.E. (1969) from Robert College, Istanbul, and M.S., M.Phil, and Ph.D. (1970-72) in engineering and applied science from Yale University. After stints at Harvard University (1972-73), Marmara Research Institute (Gebze, Turkey), and Boğaziçi University (Istanbul), he joined the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1981 and remained on the faculty there (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL)) until his retirement at the end of 2020, assuming also several leadership positions at the university during that period. Among these are Director of the Center for Advanced Study (CAS; 2014-20), Interim Dean of Engineering (2018), and Interim Director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (2008-10). Since January 2021, designated as emeritus faculty, he has been holding the titles of Swanlund Endowed Chair Emeritus, CAS Professor Emeritus of ECE, and Research Professor in CSL and Information Trust Institute. Since July 1, 2021, he has also been serving as the Executive Director of Illinois at Singapore Pte Ltd. He has spent sabbatical years at Twente University of Technology (the Netherlands, 1978-79), and INRIA (Sophia-Antipolis, France, 1987-88, 1994-95).

Dr. Başar is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering (elected in 2000), Fellow of IEEE (1983), IFAC (2005), and SIAM (2012), and an IFAC Advisor (since 2017). He has served as President (2000) of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), Founding President (1990-94) of the International Society of Dynamic Games (ISDG), and President (2010-11) of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC). He has received several awards and recognitions over the years, including (in reverse chronological order) Wilbur Cross Medal (Yale University, 2021), Control Systems Technical Field Award (IEEE, 2014), Rufus Isaacs Award (ISDG, 2010), Swanlund Endowed Chair at UIUC (2007), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (AACC, 2006),  Giorgio Quazza Medal (IFAC, 2005), Outstanding Service Award (IFAC, 2005), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (IEEE CSS, 2004), Tau Beta Pi Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award (UIUC, 2004), IEEE Millennium Medal (2000), and Medal of Science of Turkey (1993). He has also received honorary doctorates and professorships from several international institutions, among which are KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm); Tsinghua, Shandong, and Northeastern Universities (China); Boğaziçi and Doğuş Universities (Istanbul); and National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. Over the years he has been active in IEEE, holding various leadership positions, including Founding Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Expert Now (2007-09), Editor of the 2001 IEEE Press centennial volume Control Theory: Twenty-Five Seminal Papers (1932-1981), Editor for Technical Notes and Correspondence for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (1992-94), and General Chair (1992) and Program Chair (1989) of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. He has also been active in IFAC in various capacities, including Chair of Publications Managing Board (2017-23), Chair of Publications Committee (2014-17), Chair of Quazza Medal Selection Committee (2020-23, 2008-11), and Council Member (2011-14). He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the IFAC Journal Automatica (2004-14), following his position with the same journal as Editor and Deputy Editor-in-Chief (1993-2003). He is currently editor of several book series, among which are Annals of ISDG (Birkhäuser, founding editor), Systems & Control: Foundations and Applications (Birkhäuser), Static and Dynamic Game Theory: Foundations and Applications (Birkhäuser, founding editor), and SpringerBriefs in Electronic and Computer Engineering: Control, Automation and Robotics (Springer, founding co-editor). He has also co-edited the two-volume Handbook of Dynamic Game Theory (Springer, 2018), as well as editing several books.

Tamer Başar has authored or co-authored over 1,000 publications, including six books (some with several editions), journal articles, conference papers, and chapters in edited volumes and handbooks, in the diverse fields of systems, control, communications, optimization, networks, and dynamic games. His highly cited book Dynamic Noncooperative Game Theory (Academic Press, 1982; 2^nd edition, 1995; latest edition in SIAM Series in Classics in Applied Mathematics, 1999) defined the field of research in dynamic game theory in multiple disciplines for several decades since its first publication—from engineering to applied mathematics to economics and social sciences. A second book H-infinity Optimal Control and Related Minimax Design Problems (Birkhäuser, 1991; 2^nd edition, 1995) impacted research in robust control by establishing connections to the powerful framework of zero-sum games. Topics of his other four books span a broad spectrum, including network security, wireless and communication networks, stochastic team theory and networked control, and game theory for next generation wireless networks. His research interests have been, and continue to be, in stochastic teams, games, and networks; risk-sensitive estimation and control; mean-field game theory; multi-agent systems and learning; data-driven distributed optimization; epidemics modeling and control over networks; strategic information transmission, spread of disinformation, and deception; security and trust; energy systems; and cyber-physical systems. Over the years he has delivered numerous plenary talks on these and related topics, and has given tutorials and short courses in several universities in Europe, Asia, and North America.

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