Peer-Aware Cost Estimation in Nonlinear General-Sum Dynamic Games for Mutual Learning and Intent Inference

Dynamic game theory is a powerful tool in modeling multi-agent interactions and human-robot systems. In practice, since the objective functions of both agents may not be explicitly known to each other, these interactions can be modeled as incomplete-information general-sum dynamic games. Solving for equilibrium policies for such games presents a major challenge, especially if the games involve nonlinear underlying dynamics. To simplify the problem, existing work often assumes that one agent is an expert with complete information about its peer, which can lead to biased estimates and failures in coordination. To address this challenge, we propose a nonlinear peer-aware cost estimation (N-PACE) algorithm for general-sum dynamic games. In N-PACE, using iterative linear quadratic (ILQ) approximation of dynamic games, each agent explicitly models the learning dynamics of its peer agent while inferring their objective functions and updating its own control policy accordingly in real time, which leads to unbiased and fast learning of the unknown objective function of the peer agent. Additionally, we demonstrate how N-PACE enables intent communication by explicitly modeling the peer’s learning dynamics. Finally, we show how N-PACE outperforms baseline methods that disregard the learning behavior of the other agent, both analytically and using our case studies. Codes available at: NPACE.