Introduction
------------
This robot is a melding of code from Bernhard's tutorial robot (BT),
Remi's K1999, and my own Hymie.
I've put this together to help new robot developers interested in
joining Bernhard's excellent Endurance competition, located at
http://berniw.org/trb. If you like, you can substitute the K1999
raceline code with your own, or find a different & better means
of steering & speed management while avoiding opponents. Or you
can work with what's there, ironing out the bugs (not that there's
many) and optimising its strengths.
Features
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* uses a precalculated raceline
* is coded in a simple & easy to understand manner, with the raceline
logic in its own seperate class.
* avoids collisions and overtakes reasonably well.
* uses the clutch effectively (unlike the standard BT or berniw robots)
* can navigate the pits, and share pits with a team driver
* co-operates with a team driver, not overtaking unless its necessary.
* has various parameters that can be configured in the XML file for
each track, controlling its speed and aggression.
* a sample setup for the clkdtm on e-track-6.
However, locus does not contain the following:-
* learning of any kind
* slowing down to avoid getting airborne on bumps. Think of ole-road-1.
* manual tuning of the raceline or raceline speeds
* gear changing is as-per BT - it doesn't switch at optimal rpm values.
* getting back on track after leaving it due to a collision or cornering
error - this is rudimentary and could be improved.
* setups for any car#-trb1 cars.
* various "hacks" and "tricks" to make it _really_ fast.
* an advanced pit strategy
* advanced brake/overtake avoidance methods. What's there isn't bad though.
* when following a team driver, could get closer to make better use of the slipstream.
You'll have to work on those things yourself, which is of course part
of the fun of robot development :)
Installation
------------
To make your own robot you'll first need to make a copy of the locus
directory. Then you must rename every locus.* file to your new
robot's name - eg if your new robot is called "mybot" then locus.cpp
becomes mybot.cpp and so on. Lastly you'll need to go through the
various source files and change instances of "locus" to "mybot", then
do the same with the Makefiles and .dsp/.sln/.vcproj files.
Good luck, and hopefully we'll see you on the race track in 2008 :)
cheers
Andrew
History
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v04 - fixed error that caused steering problems on kilo's "longday" track
a few other minor steering improvements.
v03 - fixed "forever loop" again. Properly this time.
v02 - fixed errors in locus.dsp
fixed "forever loop" in raceline.cpp
added config xmls for driver 2
v01 - initial version
0ff53ad5f4