Addressing Uncertainty in Stackelberg Games for Security: Models and Algorithms (Extended Abstract)

There has been significant recent research interest in utilizing leaderfollower Stackelberg game in security applications. Indeed, Stackelberg games are seen at many deployed applications [6]: ARMOR at Los Angeles International Airport, IRIS for Federal Air Marshals Service, GUARDS for the Transportation Security Administration, and TRUSTS for the Los Angeles Metro Rail System [3] (under evaluation). The foundational assumption for using Stackelberg games is that security forces (leaders), acting first, commit to a randomized strategy; while their adversaries (followers) choose their best response after surveillance of this randomized strategy. Due to the adversarial environment and the nature of law enforcement activities, many types of uncertainty, such as execution, observation, and preference uncertainty, must be taken into account in game-theoretic modeling for practical security applications. To that end, focusing on security games I explicitly model the aforementioned uncertainty and present theoretical analysis and novel algorithms for computing robust solutions. Furthermore, as the cornerstone in providing real world evaluations of my robust solution techniques, I propose TRUSTS, a compact game-theoretic formulation, for fare evasion deterrence in the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. In my future research, I will extend TRUSTS to address real world uncertainty and evaluate the solutions within the LA Metro system.