Efficient Ground Vehicle Path Following in Game AI

TL;DR

This paper introduces an efficient, tunable path following method for ground vehicles in game AI, utilizing quadratic Bezier curves to estimate path curvature, significantly reducing stuck events.

Contribution

It presents a novel, simple path following approach tailored for game AI that improves robustness and reduces stuck events using curvature estimation.

Findings

70% reduction in stuck events

Effective in diverse test scenarios

Robust handling of various paths and vehicles

Abstract

This short paper presents an efficient path following solution for ground vehicles tailored to game AI. Our focus is on adapting established techniques to design simple solutions with parameters that are easily tunable for an efficient benchmark path follower. Our solution pays particular attention to computing a target speed which uses quadratic Bezier curves to estimate the path curvature. The performance of the proposed path follower is evaluated through a variety of test scenarios in a first-person shooter game, demonstrating its effectiveness and robustness in handling different types of paths and vehicles. We achieved a 70% decrease in the total number of stuck events compared to an existing path following solution.