Chelsea footballers help robots acquire real-world skills

Now robots are set to be equipped with the skills needed to perform such real-world tasks, thanks to an EPSRC-funded project that aims to teach them to interact with and anticipate the actions of multiple other agents.

The project, which is led by Dr Varuna De Silva at Loughborough University London and also involves Chelsea Football Club Academy, will use an extensive dataset of player and ball tracking from football and basketball to train machine learning algorithms on what humans would do in such circumstances.

Existing artificial intelligence systems are often trained using a technique known as reinforcement learning, in which they are rewarded for making a desirable choice, and therefore learn the best course of action to take.

However, this training technique is less helpful in a multi-agent situation such as driving or playing football, where it is more difficult to identify an obvious reward for a given action.