What is RobotRace ?

RobotRace is a simulation environment, running under Windows, and using the theme of a recent contest organized by the US Army, in which autonomous all-terrain vehicles had to race in the desert.

It provides :
– a terrain
– a vehicle (2x4, 4x4)
– a dynamics engine
– a 3D graphical viewer

The user must provide the vehicle controle as a DLL conforming to the interface specification detailed in the documentation. Only one of the defined entry points is mandatory : Progress which is called by RobotRace for each simulation step. This entry point is called with the GPS position of the vehicle (x, y, heading) and the list of the next waypoints (as coordinates). On return, it must update the driving setpoints : % of maximum motor torque, % of steering, % of brake intensity.

The DLL can be written in any programming language able to generate a C-interface type DLL.

Maybe it will be possible in some future to provide the controler as a Java class, but I can’t promise...

Some snapshots (click on miniature for full-size view)