CMUnited99 (code for off-line trainer)
Patrick Riley <pfr+@cs.cmu.edu>
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University
Copyright (C) 1999 Patrick Riley

CMUnited-99 was created by Peter Stone, Patrick Riley, and Manuela Veloso

You may copy and distribute this program freely as long as you retain
this notice.  If you make any changes or have any comments we would
appreciate a message.

see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~robosoccer/ for more info about CMUnited teams
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OVERVIEW

This off-line trainer is designed to connect to the server as an
old-style coach module. This means that the server must be started
with the -coach or -coach_w_referee option.

The off-line trainer is designed primarily to tune parameters. There
are two main ways in which in can be used. The trainer can be used to
repeatedly set up similar situations (like a ball interception
situation) so that you can observe the behavior and fix problems. The
other primary mode of observation is for trying different sets of
parameters in an automatic fashion. For example, CMUnited99 has
several parameters for it's dribbling behavior which affect how close
to itself a player allows the ball to get. The off-line trainer was
used to evaluate many possible sets of parameters and the one with the
best performance characteristics was used.

The trainer can has many different behaviors, implemented in what are
known as "training modules".

In order to accomplish the second type of operation, an object known
as the "epoch controller" is used. The epoch controller watches how
many cycles have gone by, and calls the training module to write it's
current data to a file at the end of the epoch. The epoch controller
is also responsible for passing new parameter sets to the clients. The
training module gives the epoch controller a list of all the
parameters sets to be tested, and the trainer passes them on to the
clients via a said message.


INSTALLATION

See the file ../INSTALL

DIRECTIONS

See the file DIRECTIONS
