AI World Cup: Robot-Soccer-Based Competitions

Games have been used as excellent testbeds for research on artificial intelligence (AI) and computational intelligence for their diversity and complexity. In this article, we present AI World Cup, a set of AI competitions based on the game of soccer. We provide an introduction to the three challenges that concern a robot soccer match using both value-based and image-based state representations. AI Soccer runs the robot soccer match by participants managing each team of five two-wheeled robots. AI Commentator and AI Reporter observe the AI Soccer match and output real-time commentary and a summary article, respectively. Also, we introduce the AI World Cup platform along with rationale behind notable design choices. The official international AI World Cups held in 2018 and 2019 and the AI Masters competition held in 2019 as a part of the World Cyber Games are briefly discussed. Technical aspects of the strategies developed by participants are also discussed.