Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
FCPortugal team was the primary test-bed for the Setplays. Its code supplied the
main building blocks for the application of Setplays: a stable state-of-the-world, con-
sidering own observations, information shared by other players, and prediction of
actions' and interactions' effects; and a set of actions and skills that allows the easy
mapping of actions as defined in the Setplay Framework to concrete executions in the
2D simulator. The Framework has also been applied to team CAMBADA , from the
RoboCup Middle-size league, created by the Aveiro University [6,7]. This implemen-
tation is described in more detail in [18].
5
Conclusions and Future Work
Since the start of the RoboCup initiative, several coordination techniques were
proposed that tackle core MAS coordination issues in simulated robotic soccer. The
majority of these techniques has dealt with the problem of adequate player position-
ing, due to its impact on the successful execution of other actions (e.g. passing) during
a match. In general, positioning techniques have evolved from reactive to more deli-
berative approaches, meaning that players now put the team's goals in front of his
own because it is the only way for successful coordination to be achieved. Due to its
complexity, this problem as been studied in more narrower scopes (e.g. defensive and
offensive situations like opponent marking and ball passing respectively) with good
results. However, situations where the number of teammates and opponents is uneven
still don't seem to be adequately addressed by any of these.
Coordination technologies have evolved a lot since the start of RoboCup mostly
due to added functionalities and constraints in the latest simulator releases. Although
the use of communication and intelligent perception can assist team coordination
through the sharing of pertinent world information and enhance the player's world
state accuracy respectively, the simulator constraints discourage relying solely on
them. Team strategies are usually very complex and are typically embedded into
players knowledge prior to a game. The strategic approaches have also evolve from
fixed policies to more flexible and dynamic policies that are based on real-time match
information and previous opponent knowledge. Coaching was used to tweak team
strategy mostly by giving advices to players and allow a quicker adaptation to oppo-
nent's behavior. Training methods have been used as a foundation to build into team
members effective knowledge that can accelerate team coordination during real-time
match situations (e.g. learning opponent behavior).
In order to succeed, a good coordination methodology should always consider the
following aspects: Incorporate past knowledge to accelerate initial decisions for
usual situations, driven from direct human expertise or by offline learned prediction
models. This knowledge can be tailored for specific opponents; Knowledge should be
adaptable according to opponent behavior in real-time; Use alternative techniques to
complement and replace technologies based on communication and perception.
Setplays are a new concept that recently emerged on RoboCup. The Setplay
Framework implemented by FC Portugal team has shown to be very effective, enabl-
ing to clearly outperform the original team's behavior, in similar circumstances. Since
the Framework is presented as a stand-alone library, its usage is also quite simple: a
new team wishing to use it only needs to define the domain specific concepts and deal
with Setplay selection and instantiation. From this point on, it suffices to update the
ball and players positions regularly to have Setplays executed.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search