Evol Ecol Res 11: 677-689 (2009)     Full PDF if your library subscribes.

Markov decision evolutionary games with expected average fitness

E. Altman1, Y. Hayel2, H. Tembine2 and R. El-Azouzi2

1INRIA, MAESTRO Group, Sophia-Antipolis and 2LIA/CERI, University of Avignon, Avignon, France

Correspondence: E. Altman, INRIA, MAESTRO Group, 2004 Route des Lucioles, F-06902 Sophia-Antipolis Cedex, France.
e-mail: eitan.altman@sophia.inria.fr; yezekael.hayel@univ-avignon.fr; tembineh@yahoo.fr; rachid.elazouzi@univ-avignon.fr

ABSTRACT

Aim: To model and characterize evolutionary games where individuals have states that are described by controlled Markov chains. The action of an individual in a local interaction with another randomly selected individual determines not only the instantaneous fitness but also its probability to move to another state. The goal of a player is to maximize its time average fitness.

Mathematical methods: The main mathematical tool is occupation measures (expected frequencies of states and actions). This tool is a central one in the theory of Markov decision processes. We make use of the geometric properties of the set of achievable occupation measures.

Key assumption: Under any pure stationary policy of an individual, its Markov chain has a single ergodic class of states.

Results: We define and characterize a new concept of evolutionarily stable strategies based on the concept of ‘occupation measures’. We relate this set to the concept of evolutionarily stable set (ESSet). We present a way to transform the new type of evolutionary games into standard ones. Applying this novel framework to energy control in wireless networks, we show the existence of an occupation measure ESS (OMESS).

Keywords: energy control in wireless networks, evolutionarily stable strategy, evolutionary games, Markov decision process, occupation measure.

DOWNLOAD A FREE, FULL PDF COPY
IF you are connected using the IP of a subscribing institution (library, laboratory, etc.)
or through its VPN.

 

        © 2009 E. Altman, Y. Hayel, H. Tembine and R. El-Azouzi. All EER articles are copyrighted by their authors. All authors endorse, permit and license Evolutionary Ecology Ltd. to grant its subscribing institutions/libraries the copying privileges specified below without additional consideration or payment to them or to Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. These endorsements, in writing, are on file in the office of Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. Consult authors for permission to use any portion of their work in derivative works, compilations or to distribute their work in any commercial manner.

       Subscribing institutions/libraries may grant individuals the privilege of making a single copy of an EER article for non-commercial educational or non-commercial research purposes. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also use articles for non-commercial educational purposes by making any number of copies for course packs or course reserve collections. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also loan single copies of articles to non-commercial libraries for educational purposes.

       All copies of abstracts and articles must preserve their copyright notice without modification.