Human assisted capture-the-flag in an urban environment

This paper describes a new multi-agent test-bed developed to support research in multi-agent systems that incorporate both autonomous operation and human input. Teams compete in a modified version of the game of capture-the-flag in a maze-like environment of arbitrary complexity. Each team consists of a number of mobile robots, a human commander, and a UAV that provides essential position information. The makeup of each team, the motion constraints, and the nature of the game present a significant challenge to any multi-agent coordination scheme. This paper describes the rules of the game and the hardware and software infrastructure we have developed to play it. The paper further describes some of our work in devising an effective technique for planning paths through the maze for the ground-based robots.