A Game-Theoretic Approach to Multi-Pedestrian Activity Forecasting

We develop predictive models of pedestrian dynamics by encoding the coupled nature of multi-pedestrian interaction using game theory, and deep learning-based visual analysis to estimate person-specific behavior parameters. Building predictive models for multi-pedestrian interactions however, is very challenging due to two reasons: (1) the dynamics of interaction are complex interdependent processes, where the predicted behavior of one pedestrian can affect the actions taken by others and (2) dynamics are variable depending on an individuals physical characteristics (e.g., an older person may walk slowly while the younger person may walk faster). To address these challenges, we (1) utilize concepts from game theory to model the interdependent decision making process of multiple pedestrians and (2) use visual classifiers to learn a mapping from pedestrian appearance to behavior parameters. We evaluate our proposed model on several public multiple pedestrian interaction video datasets. Results show that our strategic planning model explains human interactions 25% better when compared to state-of-the-art methods.