Team coordination among robotic soccer players

Abstract

We present an approach for coordinating a team of soccer playing robots, used by Clockwork Orange in the RoboCup middle-size league. It is based on the idea of dynamically distributing roles among the team members and adds the notion of a global team strategy (attack, defend and intercept). Utility functions are used for estimating how well suited a robot is for a certain role. They are not only based on the time the robot expects to need to reach the ball but also on the robot's position in the field. Empirical results from the RoboCup 2001 tournament are presented demonstrating the value of extending role distribution with a team strategy. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.