Human vs. Robotic Soccer: How Far Are They? A Statistical Comparison

Abstract

In soccer games, a performance indicator is defined as a selection of action variables that aims to define all aspects of accomplishment of the game goals. However their perception during the match is extremely difficult. Over the years, soccer has been used in many research areas including the robotic international soccer competition, RoboCup. The aim of this research project is to present a comparison study, performed to detect similarities between these two games (Human versus Robotic Simulation 2D soccer). Having an off-line automatic event detection tool as a base, a collection of final game statistics was done and the Mann-Whitney test was used to verify their statistical significance. The results show that the most frequent events occurred in both types of game are successful passes. In what concerns stopped game situation types, in both types of games, the most frequent one is the Throw in situation (Human-59,8%, versus Robotic-74,1%) and the less frequent is the Corner situation (Human-13,7%, versus Robotic-10,3%). Some differences still reside, especially in the frequency of set pieces and the action prior the goal.