The Voronoi Game in Robot Coordination

Cooperation and communication are two of the fundamental problems associated with research into multirobot systems. In our work we examine the interactions of a team of robot footballers. Like computer chess and Go, robot football can be thought of as a game in which the agents on one team cooperate to control more space more comprehensively than the opposing team. As a research experiment we are investigating a ‘space-time possession game’ in which the only issue is the space controlled by the agents both individually and in combination. In this paper, we abstract a simple geometric representation of player interaction which facilitates both cooperation and communication through visual structures in the environment. We introduce the Voronoi game as a representation for the game of football and demonstrate the effectiveness of some competitive strategies.

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