An evidential game theory framework in multi-criteria decision making process

Multi-criteria decision making process is a widely concerned issue. In traditional studies, it is assumed that a decision maker’s behaviors are not affected by others. However, competitive environment is more general in real world where everybody maximizes his benefits and each people is inevitably influenced by others’ behaviors. In this paper, an evidential game theory framework is proposed in order to address the multi-criteria decision making process in the competitive environment. The proposed framework includes five stages, namely game analysis, decision-making analysis, strategies evaluations, fusion of evaluations, decision based on equilibrium, respectively. Within the proposed framework, a representation form of uncertain information called belief structure derived from Dempster–Shafer theory is employed to model the uncertainty involving experts’ subjective evaluations. The game theory is used to find the optimal combination of strategies in the interactive decision situations. The application of the proposed evidential game theory framework is given by an illustrative example.