Rescuecore

A Java development kit for Robocup Rescue

Why?

• Represent our view of the world

• Talk to kernel

• Provide debugging

• Testing tools

Architecture

The World

• Rescue simulation defines several object types– Road– Node– Building– Civilian– Fire Brigade– ...

The World (continued)

• We want to have the same types available for our agents

• Each object in the simulation is wrapped in a Java class

• Objects have get/set methods for fields

Class Heirarchy

C ivilian F ire B rigade

Police Force Am bulance Team

H um anoid

R efuge F ire S tation

Am bulance C enter Police O ffice

Build ing R oad

N ode R iver

R ivernode W orld

R escueO bject

M em ory

Sam ple F ire S tation

Sam ple Police O ffice

Sam ple Am bulance C enter

C enter Agent

Sam ple F ire B rigade

Sam ple Police Force

Sam ple Am bulance Team

Platoon Agent

Agent

Memory

• The Memory object holds all our information about the world

• Can look up objects by ID or type

• Can find common properties of objects– Position– Distance between two objects

RescueObject

• Base class for all objects in rescue environment

• Data is stored as name-value pairs (sort of)– Actually a map from property id to value

• Subclasses provide access to data in a nice way

Example: Road

• Has get methods for all data– getWidth()– getBlock()– getLength()– ...

• Set method for altering blockedness– boolean setBlock(int block, int timestamp)

Talking to the kernel

• Communication protocol is fairly complex and poorly documented

• Rescuecore hides all the details

• Agents talk to the kernel with Commands– AK_EXTINGUISH– AK_MOVE– ...

Agents

• A base Agent class is provided

• Provides mechanisms for:– sending commands– receiving hear/sense messages– automatic updates of Memory from kernel

• Subclasses only need to implement a couple of methods

The AgentSystem

• Launches Agents and connects them to the kernel

• Passes messages from the kernel to the target Agent

• Does the actual sending of Commands

A Simple Agent

• Only need to implement two methods– void sense()– boolean hear(int from, byte[] message)

• Can implement initialise if needed– void initialise(AgentSystem, int id,

RescueObject[] knowledge, RescueObject self)

A Simple Agent (continued)

protected boolean hear(int from, byte[] data) {return false;

}protected void sense() {

Building target = findCloseFieryBuilding();

appendCommand(Command.AK_EXTINGUISH(id,target.getID());

}

Using the Memory

private Building findCloseFieryBuilding() {RescueObject[] all =

memory.getObjectsOfType(TYPE_BUILDING)for (int i=0;i<all.length;++i) {

if (((Building)all[i]).isOnFire() && memory.getDistance(me(),all[i]) < MAX_EXTINGUISH_DISTANCE)

return all[i];}return null;

}

Memory Functions

• RescueObject[] getAllObjects()

• RescueObject[] getObjectsOfType(int type)

• RescueObject lookup(int id)

• int[] getXY(RescueObject o)

• double getDistance(RescueObject o1, RescueObject o2)

Agent Functions

• RescueObject me()

• void appendCommand(Command c)

• void flushCommands()

• void say(byte[] message)

• void tell(byte[] message)

PlatoonAgent Functions

• void move(int[] ids)

• void clear(Road target)

• void extinguish(Building target)

• void load(Humanoid target)

• void unload()

• RescueObject getLocation()

• int getPosition()

MemoryListeners

• Event mechanism for memory model

• void objectAdded(RescueObject o, int time)

• void objectChanged(RescueObject o, int property, int time)

• Memory class has methods for adding/removing MemoryListeners

PropertyListeners

• Can also listen for individual property changes on an object

• void propertyChanged(RescueObject o, int property, int time)

• RescueObject has methods for adding/removing PropertyListeners

Debugging

• Not well implemented yet

• Agent class has a logging method– void log(String message)– Writes to a file called agent.log

• More functionality will be added later

Tools

• RandomConfig– Generates random placements of agents and

fires

• MapGenerator– Generates random maps

• Quake– Generates earthquake data– Not written yet – any volunteers?

Writing Clever Agents

• Suppose we want to use fuzzy logic for deciding which roads to take

• Implement a Memory called FuzzyMemory• Whenever a Road gets added to the

FuzzyMemory it replaces the Road with a FuzzyRoad

• If an agent calls lookup() then it gets returned a FuzzyRoad

Project Ideas

• Prediction of fire spread

• Better path planning algorithms– Need to cope with uncertainty about roads

• Teamwork

• Centralised vs distributed control

• Searching for buried civilians/new fires

• Communication