Download Artificial Intelligence for Games

Title: Artificial Intelligence for Games
Type: 4, 12, 16 weeks and master thesis projects
Requirements: Game programming or AI in Game Programming
Supervisors:
Kim Steenstrup Pedersen ([email protected], room 4D 14)
Marco Loog ([email protected], room 4D 11)
Level of difficulty: Easy - Hard
Abstract:
The focus of commercial computer game developers have, for a long time, been on improving the graphics (photo-realistic real-time graphics, physics simulations, e.g.), and todays
new computer games does indeed show impressive graphical effects. One could claim that
this development was done at the expense of the advancement of artificial intelligence
(AI) in games. This is likely to change in the near future, since a trend is emerging in
which the AI part of games get more attention.
The current state of the art for computer game AI is rather low tech and there is
definitely plenty of room for improvements. The most common techniques are rule-based
logic and finite state machines. Unfortunately, complex behaviour is difficult to develop
using such techniques, so the future of computer game AI will probably lie in the area of
machine learning and algorithms for robotic inference.
Students interested in artificial intelligence for games will be able to do projects ranging
from practical to theoretical. A practical project could be to design and develop a generic
AI architecture for a game engine including implementations of some well known AI
techniques. In a theoretical project the student will focus on a specific advanced technique,
make an implement of it, and do a empirical study of the pros and cons of the technique.
Examples of advanced techniques are neural networks, evolutionary algorithms (genetic
algorithms and genetic programming), and reinforcement learning methods.
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