The RoboCup 2013 drop-in player challenges: Experiments in ad hoc teamwork

Abstract

Abstract. Ad hoc teamwork has recently been introduced as a general challenge for AI and especially multiagent systems [15]. The goal is to enable autonomous agents to band together with previously unknown teammates towards a common goal: collaboration without pre-coordination. While research to this point has focused mainly on theoretical treatments and empirical studies in relatively simple domains, the long-term vision has always been to enable robots or other autonomous agents to exhibit the sort of flexibility and adaptability on complex tasks that people do, for example when they play games of "pick-up" basketball or soccer. This paper chronicles the first evaluation of autonomous robots doing just that: playing pick-up soccer. Specifically, in June 2013, the authors helped organize a "drop-in player challenge" in three different leagues at the international RoboCup competition. In all cases, the agents were put on teams with no pre-coordination. This paper documents the structure of the challenge, describes some of the strategies used by participants, and analyzes the results.

Benchmarking robot cooperation without pre-coordination in the RoboCup Standard Platform League drop-in player competition

“…Most teams have successfully programmed their robots to work well as a team, coordinating which robot should go to the ball, which robot should play defense, and even what formation should be adopted against various opponent types. However, the 2013 drop-in player challenge [5] was one of the first organized efforts to evaluate a player's ability to coordinate with a set of teammates in an ad hoc manner, and the 2014 SPL drop-in player competition greatly improved upon the 2013 challenge in both scale and participation.…”

“…As 25 drop-in players registered, every robot was scheduled to participate in 6 different matches. The pairings were randomly generated by an algorithm that was also used for 3D Soccer Simulation League drop-in games (Algorithm 1 in [5]). …”

“…Although related, none of this previous research besides the 2013 drop-in challenge [5] has been evaluated on real robots programmed by various organizations from around the world in a truly ad hoc teamwork setting. This paper expands on the 2013 drop-in challenge by substantially increasing both the number of teams participating and the number of drop-in games held.…”

“…The 2014 SPL Drop-in Player Competition grew from a technical challenge held at RoboCup 2013 [5]. The 2013 technical challenge was optional, and hence only saw six SPL teams participate.…”

Making Friends on the Fly: Advances in Ad Hoc Teamwork

“…One especially relevant area of research into ad hoc teamwork is the drop-in player challenge that was held in the 2013 and 2014 RoboCup competitions in the standard platform league, the 3D simulation league, and the 2D simulation league [94]. The…”