Considerations for Real-Time Spatially-Aware Case-Based Reasoning: A Case Study in Robotic Soccer Imitation

Case-base reasoning in a real-time context requires the system to output the solution to a given problem in a predictable and usually very fast time frame. As the number of cases that can be processed is limited by the real-time constraint, we explore ways of selecting the most important cases and ways of speeding up case comparisons by optimizing the representation of each case. We focus on spatially-aware systems such as mobile robotic applications and the particular challenges in representing the systems’ spatial environment. We select and combine techniques for feature selection, clustering and prototyping that are applicable in this particular context and report results from a case study with a simulated RoboCup soccer-playing agent. Our results demonstrate that preprocessing such case bases can significantly improve the imitative ability of an agent.