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Real-Time Perception and Action in Teams of Robots for Goal Achievement in Adversarial Environments

Manuela M. Veloso
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University

Place and Time
Adamson Wing, Baker Hall
Refreshments 3:15 pm
Talk 3:30 pm

Abstract
We are interested in developing teams of autonomous robots that can collaborate, reason, and learn to achieve objectives in dynamic and uncertain environments. Robotic soccer is an example of such complex tasks where robots need to perceive and act in real-time to defeat an opponent team.

We have been pursuing research in robotic soccer using three different platforms: simulation, our own-built small-sized wheeled robots, and Sony-built four-legged robots. We participated at the RoboCup '98 competitions Last Week's Seminar
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each of them. In this talk, I describe the research issues involved in the different platforms, primarily focused on the two physical robotic ones.

The small-sized robot framework includes five mobile robots, an overhead camera for global perception and wireless radio communication between the robots and an off-board controller that acts as the distributed robot minds. I will present the real-time perception algorithm that allows for the reliable detection and association of the mobile objects (robots and ball) on the field.

This year's team, CMUnited'98, includes an algorithm for strategic individual robot positioning that anticipates collaboration needs of teammates. It computes in real-time optimal open positions that maximize the chances of successful passes as a function of the position of the goal, the ball, the other teammates and the opponent robots.

Finally, I will present our work with the legged robots built by Sony. Our team, CM-Trio, includes algorithms for automated vision calibration and distributed probabilistic landmark-based localization towards precise achievement of goals.

The talk will be illustrated with video clips from the RoboCup'98 games.

This research is done in conjunction with my CS graduate students Michael Bowling, Kwun Han, Peter Stone, and William Uther, with the research engineer Sorin Achim, and with the CS junior Patrick Riley.

Speaker Biography
Manuela M. Veloso is Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992. She received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1980 and an M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1984 from the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, as well as an M.A. in Computer Science in 1986 from Boston University.

Prof. Veloso's long-term research goal is the effective construction of intelligent agents where cognition, sensors, and action are combined to address planning, execution, and learning tasks. In 1995 Prof. Veloso received an NSF CAREER Award to pursue her research interests in autonomous robotic agents. She investigates methods for individual behavioral and strategy learning for teams of multiple robotic agents acting in an adversarial environment. In the concrete robotic soccer research environment, her robotic teams are RoboCup'97 and RoboCup'98 world champions. Prof. Veloso was awarded the Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research in 1997.

Prof. Veloso has served in various program committees, and she has been invited to present her work at several international meetings. She is co-editor of ``Symbolic Visual Learning'' (Oxford Press, 1997), co-editor of ``Case-Based Reasoning Research and Development'' (Springer Verlag, 1995), and the author of ``Planning and Learning by Analogical Reasoning'' (Springer Verlag, 1994). She is also an author of over 50 technical papers in journals and conferences.

Speaker Appointments
For appointments, please contact the speaker, Manuela M. Veloso, at mmv@cs.cmu.edu.