rec.autos.simulators

RARS is the Robot Auto Racing Simulation, a competition for
programmers and an on-going challenge for practicioners of Artificial
Intelligence and real-time adaptive optimal control.  It consists of
a simulation of the physics of cars racing on a track, a graphic
display of the race, and a separate control program (robot "driver")
for each car.  All RARS software and activities are free and open to
the public.  For more information e-mail to m...@cac.psu.edu.

                 Contents

          Authors Point Standings
          Upcoming Races
          June 25 Competitors
          June 25 Race Commentary
          June 25 Race Report
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      Expert Class Point standings
Jussi Pajala        23 pts         (Finland)      WappuCar
Randy Saint         23 pts         (U.S.A.)       Ramdu
Safai Ma            16 pts         (Canada)       Burns
Tim Battersby       10 pts         (Canada)       Emily
Bill Benedict        9 pts         (U.S.A.)       Rusty
Mike Inman           9 pts         (U.S.A.)       Indretti
Muir Lee Harding     6 pts         (U.S.A.)       racer_X
Nicole Greiber       4 pts         (Germany)      Marvin
George Doster        2 pts         (U.S.A.)       JayMan1

          Novice Class Points:
Oscar Gustafsson    18 pts         (Sweden)       OscCar2
Tristrom Cooke      10 pt          (Australia)    Bingo1
Grant Reeve          9 pts         (New Zealand)  Piranha
Carl Burke           8 pts         (U.S.A.)       Blender2
Patrick Tierney      5 pts         (Canada)       Heath2
Thomas Rooney        2 pts         (U.S.A.)       goCART
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            The Next Six RARS Race Meets
For the next twelve weeks we will have the oval track races three
times and the road races on the June 11 tracks three times.  This is
to give the authors time to master passing, collision avoidance and
the geometry of the two road race tracks, S1.TRK and S2.TRK.
There is live race commentary on IRC channel #RARS, 5:00 PM EDT.

June 25, July 23, August 20:
     No. of races: 6 novice and 6 expert
     Track: oval2
     Laps: 10 each race
     Software version:   0.62 (or latest variant of 0.60)
     Surface type:       0
     no practice on race day, practice at home all you want!
     The default starting order system will be used, i.e. alternating
     random and reversed.

July 9, August 6, September 3:
     No. of races        2 novice and 2 expert
     Tracks:             S1.TRK and S2.TRK, one race on each
     Laps: 80 each race
     Software version:   0.62 (or latest variant of 0.60)
     Surface Type:       1
     no practice, random/reversed starting order.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

             June 25 Race Report:

Competitors, Novice Class:

Grant Reeve         New Zealand    Piranha
Oscar Gustavsson    Sweden         OscCar2
Tristrom Cooke      Australia      Bingo1
Carl Burke          U.S.A.         Blender2
Nicole Greiber      Germany        Marvin
George Doster       U.S.A.         JayMan1
Patrick Tierney     Canada         Heath2

Competitors, Expert Class:

Bill Benedict       U.S.A.         Rusty
Safai Ma            Canada         Burns
Jussi Pajala        Finland        WappuCar
Randy Saint         U.S.A.         Ramdu
Mike Inman          U.S.A.         Indretti
Nicole Greiber      Germany        Marvin
George Doster       U.S.A.         JayMan1

The June 25 races on the oval track were the first using version
0.62, with the improved collision code.  Several of the robots were
using collision avoidance and passing algorithms, and these made a
difference, even though raw speed was still of at least equal
importance.  In order to compare the race results with the speed
potential of each robot, here is a chart of their speed when running
alone on the track:

     Ramdu  avg spd 73.33     7 laps      0 damage  142 fuel  
     Burns  avg spd 72.6      7 laps      0 damage  143 fuel  
    Marvin  avg spd 71.22     7 laps      0 damage  141 fuel  
  WappuCar  avg spd 70.56     7 laps      0 damage  142 fuel  
  Indretti  avg spd 70.30     7 laps      0 damage  140 fuel  
   JayMan1  avg spd 69.65     7 laps      0 damage  144 fuel  
    Heath2  avg spd 69.08     7 laps      0 damage  143 fuel  
   OscCar2  avg spd 68.93     7 laps      0 damage  141 fuel  
   Piranha  avg spd 68.66     7 laps      0 damage  142 fuel  
     Rusty  avg spd 67.97     7 laps      0 damage  144 fuel  
    Bingo1  avg spd 67.92     7 laps      0 damage  140 fuel  
  Blender2  avg spd 67.72     7 laps      0 damage  140 fuel  

An interesting side issue is the fuel used to complete seven laps.
It ranged from about 6 pounds, in the case of Rusty and JayMan1, to
about 10 pounds, for Indretti, Bingo1 and Blender2.  This will become
important in some future races.  The race reports below show that
much more fuel is necessary when there is traffic congestion.

There were two first-timers competing today, Nicole Greiber and
George Doster.  Both did very well, taking first and second in the
novice division, thereby becoming experts on their first day of
competition!  
--------------------------------------------------------------------
                   Novice Races

7 cars for 10 laps.  The track was oval2.trk.  The drivers were:
OscCar2, Marvin, JayMan1, Heath2, Piranha, Bingo1, and Blender2.

The initial RVG seed was 58926.

   results of race 1:
starting positions:
Blender2, Piranha, Heath2, JayMan1, Marvin, Bingo1, and OscCar2.

 1   Marvin  avg spd 71.09    10 laps   5889 damage  138 fuel   10 pts accum
 2  JayMan1  avg spd 69.67    10 laps   1173 damage  141 fuel    6 pts accum
 3  OscCar2  avg spd 68.69     9 laps   9506 damage  137 fuel    4 pts accum
 4   Bingo1  avg spd 67.73     9 laps   5243 damage  137 fuel    3 pts accum
 5   Heath2  avg spd 67.72     9 laps   3999 damage  139 fuel    2 pts accum
 6 Blender2  avg spd 67.16     9 laps  10458 damage  137 fuel    1 pts accum
 7  Piranha  avg spd 67.19     9 laps   8546 damage  138 fuel    0 pts accum

   results of race 2:
starting positions:
OscCar2, Bingo1, Marvin, JayMan1, Heath2, Piranha, and Blender2.

 1   Marvin  avg spd 70.96    10 laps  10573 damage  138 fuel   20 pts accum
 2  JayMan1  avg spd 69.65    10 laps      0 damage  141 fuel   12 pts accum
 3  OscCar2  avg spd 68.88     9 laps  17529 damage  137 fuel    8 pts accum
 4  Piranha  avg spd 68.04     9 laps  10089 damage  138 fuel    3 pts accum
 5   Bingo1  avg spd 67.66     9 laps  13892 damage  137 fuel    5 pts accum
 6 Blender2  avg spd 66.99     9 laps  11496 damage  137 fuel    2 pts accum
 7   Heath2  avg spd 66.82     9 laps   5381 damage  140 fuel    2 pts accum

   results of race 3:
starting positions:
OscCar2, Piranha, Heath2, JayMan1, Blender2, Marvin, and Bingo1.

 1   Marvin  avg spd 71.11    10 laps   4943 damage  138 fuel   30 pts accum
 2  JayMan1  avg spd 69.67    10 laps    131 damage  141 fuel   18 pts accum
 3  OscCar2  avg spd 68.39     9 laps  10871 damage  137 fuel   12 pts accum
 4 Blender2  avg spd 67.64     9 laps      0 damage  137 fuel    5 pts accum
 5   Bingo1  avg spd 67.11     9 laps  19066 damage  137 fuel    7 pts accum
 6  Piranha  avg spd 67.12     9 laps  23258 damage  138 fuel    4 pts accum
 7   Heath2  avg spd 66.88     9 laps   7366 damage  140 fuel    2 pts accum

   results of race 4:
starting positions:
Bingo1, Marvin, Blender2, JayMan1, Heath2, Piranha, and OscCar2.

 1   Marvin  avg spd 70.92    10 laps   6461 damage  138 fuel   40 pts accum
 2  JayMan1  avg spd 69.53    10 laps   5968 damage  141 fuel   24 pts accum
 3  OscCar2  avg spd 68.67     9 laps  11358 damage  137 fuel   16 pts accum
 4  Piranha  avg spd 68.08     9 laps   3119 damage  138 fuel    7 pts accum
 5   Bingo1  avg spd 67.93     9 laps   6689 damage  136 fuel    9 pts accum
 6 Blender2  avg spd 67.49     9 laps   6146 damage  137 fuel    6 pts accum
 7   Heath2  avg spd 67.08     9 laps   5774 damage  140 fuel    2 pts accum

   results of race 5:
starting positions:
Heath2, JayMan1, OscCar2, Piranha, Bingo1, Marvin, and Blender2.

 1   Marvin  avg spd 70.57    10 laps  10198 damage  137 fuel   50 pts accum
 2  OscCar2  avg spd 68.46    10 laps  12064 damage  137 fuel   22 pts accum
 3  JayMan1  avg spd 68.25     9 laps  16071 damage  141 fuel   28 pts accum
 4 Blender2  avg spd 67.62     9 laps   1258 damage  137 fuel    9 pts accum
 5   Bingo1  avg spd 67.33     9 laps  15755 damage  136 fuel   11 pts accum
 6  Piranha  avg spd 67.25     9 laps  13415 damage  138 fuel    8 pts accum
 7   Heath2  avg spd 66.76     9 laps   6884 damage  140 fuel    2 pts accum

   results of race 6:
starting positions:
Blender2, Marvin, Bingo1, Piranha, OscCar2, JayMan1, and Heath2.

 1   Marvin  avg spd 70.75    10 laps   5257 damage  138 fuel   60 pts accum
 2  JayMan1  avg spd 69.63    10 laps  16003 damage  141 fuel   34 pts accum
 3  OscCar2  avg spd 68.67     9 laps  11429 damage  137 fuel   26 pts accum
 4 Blender2  avg spd 67.73     9 laps    297 damage  137 fuel   12 pts accum
 5   Bingo1  avg spd 67.85     9 laps   3757 damage  136 fuel   13 pts accum
 6   Heath2  avg spd 67.41     9 laps  11617 damage  140 fuel    3 pts accum
 7  Piranha  avg spd 67.49     9 laps   6309 damage  138 fuel    8 pts accum
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Overall Results of Novice Races:
1st place   Marvin       60 pts
2nd place   JayMan1      34
3rd place   OscCar2      26
4th placd   Bingo1       13
5th placd   Blender2     12
6th place   Piranha       8
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                        Expert Races

7 cars for 10 laps.  The track was oval2.trk.  The drivers were:
Marvin, JayMan1, Indretti, Rusty, WappuCar, Ramdu, and Burns.

The ...

read more »

: Wyatt C. Matthews

                       RARS Version 0.62

            A Challenge for Evolutionary Programming

                 A Competition for Programmers

                      by Mitchell E. Timin

The Robot Auto Racing Simulation (RARS) is a simulation of auto racing
in which the cars are driven by robots.  Its purpose is two-fold: to
serve as a vehicle for Artificial Intelligence development and as a
recreational competition among software authors.  The host software,
including source, is available at no charge.  It currently runs under
MSDOS and UNIX, including Linux, and on the Macintosh and Amiga. This
announcement introduces the seventh release of the software, which we
call version 0.62.  RARS is written in C++.  The DOS version was
compiled and tested with Borland C++ ver. 3.1.  C++ is not required
for the robot "driver" programs.

The race tracks are defined by ASCII files.  Many pre-defined tracks
are supplied.  The desired track is named on the command line. Users
can create their own tracks using any text editor, although this is
not a trivial process unless a CAD program is used to find the exact
lengths, angles, and radii for the track segments.  It is possible to
do it by trial and error, however.

There is a RARS anonymous ftp site: ftp.best.com in directory
u4/pub/ijs/rars.  Anyone can get any RARS stuff there, code,
announcements, car controllers, documentation, and tracks.  Jivko

principal file that you probably want for DOS is rars062.zip.  There
are also files for UNIX, Amiga, Macintosh, and also for other
compilers besides Borland.  Also, check out the tracks, robots, and
digest sub-directories.

There is a listserver so that interested parties may discuss
RARS by e-mail.  To subscribe to the list service send e-mail to

    subscribe rars-list
(To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe rars-list" to the same address.)

There are several WWW locations devoted to RARS.  Two that were up
on June 18, 1995 are:
http://www.cftnet.com/members/mindwarp/rars.html
http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/rars/

RARS consists of a simulation of the physics of cars racing on a
track, with a simple bird's-eye view of the race.  The unique feature
is that each car is controlled by a separate and independent control
program.  Each car is "driven" by its own control program, which
receives information from the simulation telling it about the car's
local situation.  The "driver" (control program) adjusts the steering
and throttle, and then the physics simulation moves the car a little.
This happens many times per second, of course.  Every car has exactly
the same physical characteristics, only the "drivers" are different.
Hence, the result is a competition between the control programs.
Furthermore, the competition is visible as an auto race, with
acceleration, passing, cornering, braking, etc.

It is intended that many users will write their own robot "drivers".
Many robots are supplied.  These are meant to serve as examples for
programmers wishing to develop their own.  The control programs may
be written in other languages if they are linker-compatible on the
intended platform.  To date the robot "driver" programs have used
C++ or ANSI C.

For genetic programming, the races will be between several programs
selected from an evolving population of programs.  The racing may
take place continuously for long periods of time, with the graphic
display disabled for faster execution.  Of course losers will be
eliminated and winners will breed.  Genetic Algorithm proponents will
probably design robot drivers with a vector of parameters to be
determined by evolution.  Neural nets are also candidate "drivers".
It will be up to the experimenter to decide if human-designed robots
are allowed to compete with the evolving population.

New features introduced with version 0.45 were:
- The drivers which are to race can be named on the command line.
- The computer can generate a random starting order.
- The race can be run with no graphics display.
- A series of races can be run, on the same track with the same drivers.
- A report is generated in a file, giving the results of all races in
  a series.  Points are accumulated using the F1 scoring system.
- Degrees or radians may be used in any track definition file.
- Clockwise tracks will work now.

Version 0.50 introduced these features:
- "instrument panel" showing how a selected car is behaving in real-time
- the F and S keys speed up or slow down the simulation during a race
- several additional command line options
- a portable draw_arc function for drawing the track rails

Version 0.62 added many items.  Among them are:
- Fuel consumption and variable mass, with lost time for re-fueling
- command line option to enter the RVG seed, to replay a race exactly
- race report has laps completed, damage and fuel for each car
- optional pre-race practice, for robots which can learn
- new collision code, making passing and collision avoidance more important
- The file "WHATNEW.DOC" details all the differences w.r.t. ver. 0.50.

Wanted - People to do or help with any of the following:

     Porting to MS-Windows
     Testing the software and suggesting enhancements
     Improving the graphics
     Locating a corporate or university sponsor
     Act as a race director to manage a "race meet"
     Reporting, both to academic journals and popular magazines
     Improving the software in any of dozens of ways
     (and of course, building "drivers" to compete in the races!)