Evolving driving controllers using Genetic Programming

Computational gaming requires the automatic generation of virtual opponents for different game levels. We have turned to artificial evolution to automatically generate such game players. In particular, we have used genetic programming to automatically evolve computer programs for computer gaming. With genetic programming, in theory, it is possible to generate any kind of program. The programs are not constrained as much as they are in other computational learning approaches, e.g. neural networks. We show how genetic programming improved upon a manually crafted race car driver (proportional controller). The open race car simulator TORCS was used to evaluate the virtual drivers.