| | 150 | |
| | 151 | In this tutorial we're going to connect the HeuristicLab 3.3 Optimizer with the Race Car Setup Optimization Competition that was organized for the EvoStar 2010 conference. Unfortunately the submission is already closed for this year, but let's hope there will be another competition hopefully in 2011. |
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| | 153 | The problem is a classic "simulation-based optimization problem" so there is a simulator, a simulation model, and several configuration parameters that have to be optimized. Additionally there might or might not be noise present in the evaluation of a configuration. More concretely the simulator is called [http://torcs.sourceforge.net/ TORCS], the simulation model consists of a certain simulated driver that tries to race as fast as possible and the configuration parameters are various settings of the race car that can be tuned. The challenging part in this problem is the limitation of the number of simulation time. Each optimizing run is given a certain number of simulation time in which the best parameter has to be found. Each solution is evaluated with a certain slice of that simulation time. It is possible to choose the size of this slice such that one evaluates a shorter time, with more noise on the quality values, but with a bigger number of possible evaluated solutions or a longer time with less noise, but the algorithm can calculate fewer generations. The driver in the simulation model starts where it left off after the last configuration, so there is some noise that depends on the driver's position on the track and some that depends on the previous configuration, which could have sent the driver off the track. |
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| | 155 | To prepare for this tutorial there's a couple of things that we need to obtain. |
| | 156 | 1. Download the simulator TORCS from http://torcs.sourceforge.net/ |
| | 157 | 2. Download the Windows Server, Java Client and the manual from http://cig.dei.polimi.it/?page_id=103 |
| | 158 | 3. Follow the instructions in the excellent manual that you just downloaded to learn more about the problem situation and how to perform the setup |
| | 159 | |
| | 160 | Once you're done, you should get a latest copy of HeuristicLab 3.3 or build it from source using Visual Studio. |
