A Decision-Mechanism for Reactive and Cooperating Soccer-Playing Agents

In this paper we present some preliminary results regarding a system for developing autonomous agents that combine reactivity to an uncertain and rapidly changing environment and commitment to prespecified tactics involving cooperation. A central requirement is that the behavior specification should be done by people who are not computer and AI specialists. The original application was air-combat simulation. Here we consider the simulated soccer domain in perspective of the RoboCup competition. The behavior of an agent is specified in terms of prioritized rules organized into a decision tree. Coordinated behaviors are encoded in the decision trees of the individual agents. What link individual behavior descriptions together are explicit communication and common means to describe the situation the agents are in