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RESEARCH TOPIC

Rolling Horizon Evolutionary Algorithms for General Video Game Playing

Raluca’s research is focused on Rolling Horizon Evolutionary Algorithms (RHEA), which show promise to outperform the dominating Monte Carlo Tree Search in the area of general video game playing. As a sub-field of Artificial Intelligence, general video game playing aims to design an agent which would achieve high-level play in any given game, thus raising the need to generalize the heuristics used and introduce various machine learning techniques to gather information about the previously unknown game. So far, various aspects have been explored in several games, such as the impact of the hyper parameters on performance; population seeding techniques; and other algorithm structure modifications previously encountered in literature, now tested in a consistent environment and a general setting. On successful completion, the research aims to bring forward better NPCs and new challenging experiences for players, as well as reliable game testing tools.

Raluca’s latest studies look at a better understanding of RHEA’s inner workings through feature analysis (including algorithm convergence, sense of danger or fitness landscapes observed), as well as performance prediction based on the agent’s experience while playing the game.

Related publications: Full publication list

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Journals

  • SN Applied Sciences (SNAS) 2020
  • IEEE Transactions on Games (TOG) 2020
  • Machine Learning Journal (MACH) 2019
  • International Computer Games Association Journal (ICGA) 2019
  • IEEE Transactions on Games (TOG) 2019
  • IEEE Transactions on Games (TOG) 2018

Conferences

  • ACM Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2021
  • AAAI 2021
  • AAAI Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (AIIDE) 2020
  • ACM Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2020
  • NeurIPS Competitions 2020
  • Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) 2020
  • ACM CHI 2020
  • IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) 2020
  • AAAI Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (AIIDE) 2019
  • IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) 2019
  • ACM Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2019
  • AAAI Workshop on Knowledge Extraction from Games (KEG) 2019
  • IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2019
  • Conference of the Spanish Association of Artificial Intelligence (CAEPIA) 2018
  • ACM Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2018
  • IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) 2018
  • IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2018
  • AAAI Workshop on Knowledge Extraction from Games (KEG) 2018
  • IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2017