Game theory applications in systems-of-systems engineering: A literature review and synthesis

Abstract

Systems-of-systems (SoS) are becoming increasingly common in more and more domains, spreading from the initial focus on government-controlled areas such as defense to open market industries. This implies that collaborative SoS are becoming more important, where the constituents need to be given incentives to join and remain within the SoS. Game theory has been proposed as a framework to model and analyze such SoS mechanisms. It aims at providing incentives to the independently operated and managed constituents. This paper presents a systematic literature review on the applications of game theory to SoS engineering, together with a synthesis aiming at capturing the best practices for doing such an analysis. The main conclusions are that game theory can be applied to SoS in a wide range of application areas, and deal with problems related to acquisition, design, and operations. In particular, the operational formation of SoS are well suited for this kind of analysis, and it often requires the use of simulation techniques. However, most results in the field lack a validation in practice.