Methods and devices for demonstrating three-player pursuit-evasion game

A method for demonstrating a game theory by a hardware demonstrator, comprising:

• arranging robots, comprising pursuer robots and an evader robot, on a solid surface;
• positioning a drone flying above to oversee the robots to capture a video or an image sequence of the robots;
• in a robot thread process implemented by a computer and comprising a Timer thread process, on a first Timer sending a first command to a robot, obtaining an image of the robot after receiving the first command, the image being captured by the drone, performing a tracking-by-detection process to provide a state of the robot comprising a location and a heading direction of the robot, conducting a delay compensation, and calling a pursuit-evasion (PE) game to calculate a second robot command;
• in a drone thread process implemented by a drone controller in the computer, capturing images of the robots, calculating locations of the robots from the images of the robots, calculating a drone control to make the drone follow an evader robot, sending the drone control to the drone, and checking user commands, wherein when an exit command is not issued, repeating process in the drone thread by first re-capturing images of the robots;
• and
• setting a timer for robot controls in the robot thread process, wherein an execution duration is set for the robot controls to provide sufficient time for performing the tracking-by-detection process and for conducting the delay compensation.

A hardware demonstrator device for demonstrating a game theory, comprising:

• robots, comprising pursuer robots and an evader robot, placed on a solid surface;
• a drone, flying above to oversee the robots to capture a video or an image sequence of the robots;
• and
• a computer configured with a pursuer agent and an evader agent and configured to perform a Timer thread process to:
• send a first command to a robot, obtain an image of the robot after receiving the first command, the image being captured by the drone, perform a tracking-by-detection process to provide a state of the robot comprising a location and a heading direction of the robot, conduct a delay compensation, and call a PE game to calculate a second robot command;
• and
• a parameter estimator, configured to compute an average of a first state change (Δx1, Δy1 Δh1) based on a command to the robot over an initial sate, and a second state change (Δx2, Δy2, Δh2) based on an opposite command to the robot and the command,
• wherein a drone controller operated on the computer is configured to:
• control the drone to capture images of the robots, calculate locations of the robots from the images of the robots, calculate a drone control to make the drone follow an evader robot, send the drone control to the drone, and check user commands.