Vision-based control in the open racing car simulator with deep and reinforcement learning

Yuanheng Zhu, Dongbin Zhao

Abstract: With decades of development, computer intelligence has now reached a really high level. Especially deep learning (DL) and reinforcement learning (RL) endow computers the perception and decision abilities. This paper aims to design a vision-based system that is able to play The Open Racing Car Simulator (TORCS) like a human player that uses images. With the DL-trained perception module, useful and low-dimensional information is extracted from first-person images. Based on that, the RL-trained module further manipulates the simulated car in the middle of the lane. The two modules are separately trained, and both DL and RL advantages are maximally utilized. Experiments on different tracks show the promising performance of the method.