Weighted and Near Weighted Potential Games with Application to Game Theoretic Control

An algorithm is proposed to verify whether a finite game is a weighted potential game (WPG) without pre-knowledge on its weights. Then the algorithm is also applied to find the closest WPG for a given finite game. The concept and criterion of near weighted potential games (NWPGs) are given, indicating the evolutionary equivalence between a finite game and its closest WPG. Based on this, a method is proposed for replacing PGs by NWPGs in game theoretic control, which improved the applicability of PG-based optimization.