Soccer server: A tool for research on multiagent systems

Abstract

This article describes Soccer Server, a simulator of the game of soccer designed as a benchmark for evaluating multiagent systems and cooperative algorithms. In real life, successful soccer teams require many qualities, such as basic ball control skills, the ability to carry out strategies, and teamwork. We believe that simulating such behaviors is a significant challenge for computer science, artificial intelligence, and robotics technologies. It is to promote the development of such technologies, and to help define a new standard problem for research, that we have developed Soccer Server. We demonstrate the potential of Soccer Server by reporting an experiment that uses the system to compare the performance of a neural network architecture and a decision tree algorithm at learning the selection of soccer play plans. Other researchers using Soccer Server to investigate the nature of cooperative behavior in a multiagent environment will have the chance to assess their progress at RoboCup-97, an international competition of robotic soccer to be held in conjunction with IJCAI-97. Soccer Server has been chosen as the official server for this contest.