A Simulation Benchmark for Autonomous Racing with Large-Scale Human Data

TL;DR

This paper introduces a realistic racing simulation platform based on Assetto Corsa, providing a benchmark for testing autonomous driving algorithms like RL and MPC with extensive human driver data.

Contribution

The paper develops a new simulation environment, releases a comprehensive dataset, and evaluates multiple algorithms, advancing research in autonomous racing control.

Findings

Benchmark results for RL and MPC algorithms

Validation of algorithms in realistic racing scenarios

Public release of code, datasets, and videos

Abstract

Despite the availability of international prize-money competitions, scaled vehicles, and simulation environments, research on autonomous racing and the control of sports cars operating close to the limit of handling has been limited by the high costs of vehicle acquisition and management, as well as the limited physics accuracy of open-source simulators. In this paper, we propose a racing simulation platform based on the simulator Assetto Corsa to test, validate, and benchmark autonomous driving algorithms, including reinforcement learning (RL) and classical Model Predictive Control (MPC), in realistic and challenging scenarios. Our contributions include the development of this simulation platform, several state-of-the-art algorithms tailored to the racing environment, and a comprehensive dataset collected from human drivers. Additionally, we evaluate algorithms in the offline RL setting. All the necessary code (including environment and benchmarks), working examples, datasets, and videos are publicly released and can be found at: https://assetto-corsa-gym.github.io