Centralized Versus Decentralized Team Games of Distributed Stochastic Differential Decision Systems with Noiseless Information Structures-Part I: General Theory

Abstract: Decentralized optimization of distributed stochastic differential systems has been an active area of research for over half a century. Its formulation utilizing static team and person-by-person optimality criteria is well investigated. However, the results have not been generalized to nonlinear distributed stochastic differential systems possibly due to technical difficulties inherent with decentralized decision strategies. In this first part of the two-part paper, we derive team optimality and person-by-person optimality conditions for distributed stochastic differential systems with different information structures. The optimality conditions are given in terms of a Hamiltonian system of equations described by a system of coupled backward and forward stochastic differential equations and a conditional Hamiltonian, under both regular and relaxed strategies. Our methodology is based on the semi martingale representation theorem and variational methods. Throughout the presentation we discuss similarities to optimality conditions of centralized decision making.