Game theoretic perspective on threat detector deployment

• Main Author: Tan, Ye Sheng.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Industrial engineering::Operations research; DRNTU::Engineering::Mathematics and analysis::Simulations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54121
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In the Battle of Okinawa during World War II, the Japanese used suicide bomber pilots or better known as “kamikaze pilots”, to inflict staggering damage to the American warships off the coast of Okinawa. 21 American warships were sunk and 66 other warships were badly damaged in a battle that left the American forces reeling from the effects of a new offensive sacrificial strategy which would develop into what is now known as the modern day suicide bomber[1]. Fast forward to the present day, terrorist militant groups like the Al-Qaeda and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are the current advocates of the suicide bomber. These terrorists are willing to risk their own lives to deliver widespread damage to human lives and property, all for the sake of sending a strong message of their cause and beliefs. The threat of a bomb attack in any society is as real as it gets. With the 2008 MRT bomb hoax in the Singapore heartlands of Yishun[2] still fresh in many people’s minds, this case highlights a need for attrition tactics to be implemented. McBride and Richardson (2010)[3] defines attrition tactics to be “stopping the suicide bombers before they strike and hardening infrastructure to reduce damage done by bomb blasts”. Hence there is a need for surveillance, bomb or threat detection technology to be implemented in a densely populated region to reduce or possibly avoid casualties entirely. To circumvent casualties, the government needs to provide deterrence in the form of pre-empting attacks from terrorists, through optimum threat detector placements and near-zero margin for error neutralizations of terrorists. Developing upon the work by Brown et al. (2010)[4], the author will work with a similar but revised algorithm targeted at the minimization of expected damage, instead of the minimization of the probability of evasion for the terrorist. The author will make use of an exact enumerate method to solve for a solution in the optimum placement of these detectors. This will minimize the probability of an intelligent suicide attacker evading detection in the midst of his bombing attack, which will in turn minimize the damage inflicted on the target area. With the algorithm, a few case studies will be conducted on the Marina Bay Basin, Tanjong Pagar Terminal, and Changi Naval Base in Singapore. The basis of this report is the utilization of Stackelberg games, where the government (leader) needs to optimize defensive pre-positioning of detection platforms while assuming the terrorist (follower) will observe these positioning, and select their best response path to exploit any loopholes in these defences.