Increasing the distance of the point the artificial driver aimed at made him tend to cut corners a bit more, and essentially hit the tires in the chicane or the tall curbing on the sharp 90 degree turn. Although you are correct looking too closely on a straight tends to make the driver wobble from left to right as it goes beyond the desired direction. Interestingly, I tried solving this problem much earlier in development by interpolating the actual steering input in a smooth step or inverse squared manner.
Essentially the idea was that the closer the driver already is to the desired direction, the less he would steer towards it in a non-linear fashion. This sounded pretty intuitive to me at the time, however it resulted in the artificial driver turning in far later than he should, because it takes longer for his steering angle to actually increase, I decided to remove that and simply steer linearly.
I'm taking a break from the project currently to do some other things in life, but it is only a matter of time before I get some thoughts jumping and wanting to be tested. It is really unfortunate that I can't get the predictions to be smooth enough for actual usage. I was hoping to get the artificial driver to change the inputs based on the predicted position/direction and desired direction/position. Theoretically, this will automatically look further ahead when travelling at speed and should, also theoretically, reduce weaving/wobble on a straight. I do see a slight potential that it could actually make the wobble worse.
I may work on a very small, two-dimensional racer project just to try out the genetic algorithms and possibly ANNs, they sound neat in concept, and it also sounds like one of those very rewarding things to create. Watching the cars get a little better would be super neat. I will not be using true physics in this project. That is actually quite advanced. I may simulate the engine, clutch, gearbox properly, but that force will then just move the vehicle forward, and turning will simply rotate the vehicle instead of applying torque with the front wheels and adhering to the ground with friction. Simplifying everything only to play around with learning algorithms.
Essentially the idea was that the closer the driver already is to the desired direction, the less he would steer towards it in a non-linear fashion. This sounded pretty intuitive to me at the time, however it resulted in the artificial driver turning in far later than he should, because it takes longer for his steering angle to actually increase, I decided to remove that and simply steer linearly.
I'm taking a break from the project currently to do some other things in life, but it is only a matter of time before I get some thoughts jumping and wanting to be tested. It is really unfortunate that I can't get the predictions to be smooth enough for actual usage. I was hoping to get the artificial driver to change the inputs based on the predicted position/direction and desired direction/position. Theoretically, this will automatically look further ahead when travelling at speed and should, also theoretically, reduce weaving/wobble on a straight. I do see a slight potential that it could actually make the wobble worse.
I may work on a very small, two-dimensional racer project just to try out the genetic algorithms and possibly ANNs, they sound neat in concept, and it also sounds like one of those very rewarding things to create. Watching the cars get a little better would be super neat. I will not be using true physics in this project. That is actually quite advanced. I may simulate the engine, clutch, gearbox properly, but that force will then just move the vehicle forward, and turning will simply rotate the vehicle instead of applying torque with the front wheels and adhering to the ground with friction. Simplifying everything only to play around with learning algorithms.