Conference,
Development and Simulation of Pacman Game using Multi-Client Architecture via Player/Stage Tool
(2014)
Abstract
rapid progress is seen in the field of robotics both in educational and industrial
automation sectors. The Robotics education in particular is gaining technological advances
and providing more learning opportunities. In automotive sector, there is a necessity and
demand to automate daily human activities by robot. With such an advancement and
demand for robotics, the realization of a popular computer game will help students to learn
and acquire skills in the field of robotics. The computer game such as Pacman offers
challenges on both software and hardware fronts. In software, it provides challenges in
developing algorithms for a robot to escape from the pool of attacking robots and to develop
algorithms for multiple ghost robots to attack the Pacman. On the hardware f
ront, it
provides a challenge to integrate various systems to realize the game. This project aims to
demonstrate the pacman game in real world as well as in simulation. For simulation
purpose Player/Stage is used to develop single-client and multi-client architectures. The
multi- client architecture in player/stage uses one global simulation proxy to which all the
robot models are connected. This reduces the overhead to manage multiple robots proxy.
The single-client architecture enables only two robot models to connect to the simulation
proxy. Multi-client approach offers flexibility to add sensors to each port which will be used
distinctly by the client attached to the respective robot. The robots are named as Pacman
and Ghosts, which try to escape and attack respectively. Use of Network Camera has been
done to detect the global positions of the robots and data is shared through inter-process
communication.
