Regression and mental models for decision making on robotic biped goalkeepers

Abstract

We investigate the decision-making and behavior of robotic biped goalkeepers, applied to the RoboCup 3D Soccer Simulation League. We introduce two approaches to the goalkeeper’s behavior: first a heuristics-based approach that uses linear regression and Kalman filters for improved perception, and another based on mental models which uses nonlinear regression for ball trajectory filtering. Our experiments consist of 30,000 kick-and-save tests, using 100 random angle and distance kicks from six distance categories and four angle categories repeated 30 times. Our benchmark results show that both proposed approaches bring significant improvements for the goalkeeper’s save success rates (>200%) and validate the applicability of the novel mental model based decisionmaking process.