A key direction for research in systems and control involves engineering systems. These are highly distributed collective systems (with decisions, information and objectives distributed throughout) that involve humans. As a result, decisions have the potential to be influenced by socioeconomic factors outside the realm of limited computation capacities. Engineering systems emphasize the potential of control and games beyond traditional applications and game theory can be used to design incentives to obtain socially desirable behaviours on the part of the players, including changing consumption patterns or better traffic distribution. This unique book addresses both the foundations of game theory, with emphasis on the physical intuition behind the concepts, and new trends in the study of cooperation and competition in large complex distributed systems. It is ideal for students and researchers in several aspects of engineering, as well as for social scientists or biologists working on adaption mechanisms and evolutionary dynamics.
