A reactive mutli-agent approach to car driving using artificial potential fields

The Car Racing championship initiative is a platform for evaluating different car control solutions under competitive conditions. We introduce the novel combination of using artificial potential fields as the major control paradigm, and a multi-agent system to deal with the coordination of the different control interests. By combining fields for shortest path, and minimal curvature with a field that makes sure that the car stays on the track, we get a purely reactive car controller. The experimental evaluation of it shows that it performs well, ending at 2nd place in the time challenge, and in the top in the car races against three of the controllers of last year´s championship.