Deception in Reach-Avoid Game with Unknown Heterogeneous Attackers Speed Information
Organizations: School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China · Zhongguancun Laboratory, Beijing 100094, China · Hangzhou Innovation Institute, Beihang University, Hangzhou 310051, China · China North Vehicle Research Institute, Beijing 100072, China
Abstract
This letter investigates a reach-avoid game involving two Attackers and one Defender, where the Attackers aim to maximize the number reaching the target region while the Defender seeks to minimize it. In contrast to conventional complete information formulations, we consider an information asymmetry scenario where the Attackers' heterogeneous maximum speeds are privately known but publicly disclosed to lie within continuous ranges. Existing studies on uncertain speeds, however, have primarily focused on homogeneous settings, whereas heterogeneity extends the uncertainty from a common capability level to the relative capability configuration of the Attackers. To address the resulting capture-order ambiguity over infinitely many possible speed combinations, we establish a critical speed pair framework that characterizes when different capability configurations induce different optimal capture orders, and enables the analysis of the Defender's guessing behavior and the design of information-limiting strategies for the Attackers. We demonstrate that under certain initial conditions, the Attackers can mislead the Defender into making suboptimal decisions through a slow-speed deception strategy, achieving superior payoffs compared to the complete information game. Numerical visualizations reveal the widespread occurrence of such dilemma conditions.
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Game Theory
Game theory studies how interacting decision-makers choose strategies, form agreements, and shape outcomes under competition and cooperation.
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