Adversarial Decision-Making in Partially Observable Multi-Agent Systems: A Sequential Hypothesis Testing Approach

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Zhou, Haosheng, Ralston, Daniel, Yang, Xu, Hu, Ruimeng
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Zhou, Haosheng
Ralston, Daniel
Yang, Xu
Hu, Ruimeng
author_facet Zhou, Haosheng
Ralston, Daniel
Yang, Xu
Hu, Ruimeng
contents Adversarial decision-making in partially observable multi-agent systems requires sophisticated strategies for both deception and counter-deception. This paper presents a sequential hypothesis testing (SHT)-driven framework that captures the interplay between strategic misdirection and inference in adversarial environments. We formulate this interaction as a partially observable Stackelberg game, where a follower agent (blue team) seeks to fulfill its primary task while actively misleading an adversarial leader (red team). In opposition, the red team, leveraging leaked information, instills carefully designed patterns to manipulate the blue team's behavior, mitigating the misdirection effect. Unlike conventional approaches that focus on robust control under adversarial uncertainty, our framework explicitly models deception as a dynamic optimization problem, where both agents strategically adapt their policies in response to inference and counter-inference. We derive a semi-explicit optimal control solution for the blue team within a linear-quadratic setting and develop iterative and machine learning-based methods to characterize the red team's optimal response. Numerical experiments demonstrate how deception-driven strategies influence adversarial interactions and reveal the impact of leaked information in shaping equilibrium behaviors. These results provide new insights into strategic deception in multi-agent systems, with potential applications in cybersecurity, autonomous decision-making, and financial markets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_03727
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Adversarial Decision-Making in Partially Observable Multi-Agent Systems: A Sequential Hypothesis Testing Approach
Zhou, Haosheng
Ralston, Daniel
Yang, Xu
Hu, Ruimeng
Optimization and Control
Adversarial decision-making in partially observable multi-agent systems requires sophisticated strategies for both deception and counter-deception. This paper presents a sequential hypothesis testing (SHT)-driven framework that captures the interplay between strategic misdirection and inference in adversarial environments. We formulate this interaction as a partially observable Stackelberg game, where a follower agent (blue team) seeks to fulfill its primary task while actively misleading an adversarial leader (red team). In opposition, the red team, leveraging leaked information, instills carefully designed patterns to manipulate the blue team's behavior, mitigating the misdirection effect. Unlike conventional approaches that focus on robust control under adversarial uncertainty, our framework explicitly models deception as a dynamic optimization problem, where both agents strategically adapt their policies in response to inference and counter-inference. We derive a semi-explicit optimal control solution for the blue team within a linear-quadratic setting and develop iterative and machine learning-based methods to characterize the red team's optimal response. Numerical experiments demonstrate how deception-driven strategies influence adversarial interactions and reveal the impact of leaked information in shaping equilibrium behaviors. These results provide new insights into strategic deception in multi-agent systems, with potential applications in cybersecurity, autonomous decision-making, and financial markets.
title Adversarial Decision-Making in Partially Observable Multi-Agent Systems: A Sequential Hypothesis Testing Approach
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03727