Outwitting poachers with artificial intelligence: Computer science and game theory applied to protect Earth's endangered animals and forests

Human patrols serve as the most direct form of protection of endangered animals, especially in large national parks. However, protection agencies have limited resources for patrols. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Army Research Office, researchers are using artificial intelligence (AI) and game theory to solve poaching, illegal logging and other problems worldwide, in collaboration with researchers and conservationists in the U.S., Singapore, Netherlands and Malaysia. "In most parks, ranger patrols are poorly planned, reactive rather than pro-active, and habitual," according to Fei Fang, a Ph.D. candidate in the computer science department at the University of Southern California (USC). Fang is part of an NSF-funded team at USC led by Milind Tambe, professor of computer science and industrial and systems engineering and director of the Teamcore Research Group on Agents and Multiagent Systems.