Multi-player Equilibria Verification for Concurrent Stochastic Games

Kwiatkowska, M., Norman, G. , Parker, D. and Santos, G. (2020) Multi-player Equilibria Verification for Concurrent Stochastic Games. In: 17th International Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of SysTems (QEST 2020), 31 Aug - 03 Sep 2020, ISBN 9783030598532 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-59854-9_7)

Abstract

Concurrent stochastic games (CSGs) are an ideal formalism for modelling probabilistic systems that feature multiple players or components with distinct objectives making concurrent, rational decisions. Examples include communication or security protocols and multi-robot navigation. Verification methods for CSGs exist but are limited to scenarios where agents or players are grouped into two coalitions, with those in the same coalition sharing an identical objective. In this paper, we propose multi-coalitional verification techniques for CSGs. We use subgame-perfect social welfare (or social cost) optimal Nash equilibria, which are strategies where there is no incentive for any coalition to unilaterally change its strategy in any game state, and where the total combined objectives are maximised (or minimised). We present an extension of the temporal logic rPATL (probabilistic alternating-time temporal logic with rewards) to specify equilibria-based properties for any number of distinct coalitions, and a corresponding model checking algorithm for a variant of stopping games. We implement our techniques in the PRISM-games tool and apply them to several case studies, including a secret sharing protocol and a public good game.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Additional Information: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 834115) and the EPSRC Pro- gramme Grant on Mobile Autonomy (EP/M019918/1).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Norman, Dr Gethin
• Authors: Kwiatkowska, M., Norman, G., Parker, D., and Santos, G.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• ISBN: 9783030598532
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 Springer International Publishing
• First Published: First published in Quantitative Evaluation of Systems. Book Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

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