A supporter behavior for soccer playing humanoid robots

In this paper, an efficient behavior for a humanoid soccer robot supporting a teammate manipulating the ball is proposed and evaluated. This approach has been derived from human soccer tactics, requires only minimal information about the current state of the game and is therefore well suited for robots with directed vision and limited motion abilities like humanoid robots. The position of the supporter is chosen in a way to reduce the chances of the opponent team for scoring a goal and to increase the chances of the robot to take over the role of its teammate manipulating ball in case the teammate falls down or is being dodged by the opponent team. By different parameterizations more defensive or more offensive player tactics can be realized as well as adaptations to specific tactics and skills of the opposing robot players. The developed behavior was evaluated in a simulation based statistical analysis. Also an evaluation in games during RoboCup 2009 is given.