Assignment 1 - FIT5222 Planning and automated reasoning
Assignment 1: Flatland Challenge
In this assignment your job is to schedule a set of trains through a railway network.
You need to coordinate every train from its starting station to its destination as quickly as
possible. As there can be many trains moving at the same time you need to guarantee that
each path is collision-free.
The assignment has three sections, in increasing order of difficulty. The amount of points
relative to each question is stated in the question heading. A passing grade is 50%.
Be sure to watch the introductory video on Moodle and to read the Introduction to
Flatland documentation which we have prepared for you. Both are available from
Moodle.
You must update your flatland code and installation before starting the assignment:
● Under flatland folder
● git pull
● python3 setup.py install
● Now, run command python3 -m pip list , you should see flatland-rl version is
updated to 2.2.4
● (Hint, use python instead of python3 if python points to the right one on your
machine)
Instructions to get code base (in assignment1_2023 branch of piglet repo) for
assignment is in the Introduction to Flatland documentation.
When the contest server is ready, you will see your f score upon submission.
QUESTION 1: Warm up (15 points)
You are given start and target locations, one at a time. Your job is to route each train
independently from all the rest. In this question collisions are not possible and there is no
time dimension.
For this question, you need to implement a successor function for the Flatland domain. You
also need to choose an algorithm to help you find paths. You are free to use any of the
techniques we have discussed in the lectures, that you have read about in the literature or
can write your own new approach.
Your solution will be evaluated on 40 evaluation instances (only staff have these instances)
with 2 hours timelimit and each instance has 1 agent. We will compare your sum of
individual cost(SIC, for agents did not arrive goal location, its cost will be
Assignment 1 - FIT5222 Planning and automated reasoning
of the map) and success rate to an optimal solution
= 8 * (ℎ + ℎℎ)
implemented by teaching team and calculate your score using following method:
= ( __ +
* _)/_
=
/
where is the p score of staff implementation. Generally, a good solution has small
score and large score.
Your final score will be (since there are 15 points available for this question).
× 15
QUESTION 2: Easy mode (25 points)
You are given start and target locations, one at a time, as well as a set of existing paths for
trains that are already moving. Your job is to route each train individually while avoiding
collisions with all the rest. You are free to use any of the techniques we have discussed in
the lectures, that you have read about in the literature or can write your own new approach.
For this question, you need to modify your successor function to account for time. In
addition, there might be the situation that the search algorithm failed to find a feasible
solution as dynamic obstacles block all possible paths. Just return an empty list in this case.
Furthermore, each action and each location for every computed plan need to be
collision-free.
Your solution will be still evaluated on 56 instances with a 2 hours timelimit and your score in
this question will again be computed as the sum of individual path costs (SIC) and compared
to the best solution from students (and staff)!
Your will be computed in the same way as for Question 1. But there are some
differences:
● Here we compute for each instance.
● Each instance contains multiple agents.
● Your final points will be , where is instance id.
∑
÷ 56 × 25
There are up to 25 points available for this question.
Assignment 1 - FIT5222 Planning and automated reasoning
QUESTION 3: Challenge (60 points)
You are given sets of start and target locations at the same time. Your job is to route all the
trains simultaneously in a way that is collision-free. But, each agent has an expected
arrival time, late arrival will result in a penalty.
You are free to use any of the techniques we have discussed in the lectures, that you have
read about in the literature or can write your own new approach.
Now, as all agents are under your control, you need to make all agents reach their goal
locations.
In this question agents may run into malfunctions during execution. The evaluator will call
the replan function when a new malfunction occurs. Implement the replan function to
properly handle malfunction. Refer to the “Introduction to Flatland” document for details
about malfunction and replan function.
Your solution will be still evaluated on 56 instances with different difficulty levels in 2 hours
and your score in this question will again be computed as the sum of individual path costs
(SIC) and compared to the best solution from students (and staff)!
Your computation is similar to Question 1. But there are some differences:
●
= ( __ + +
* _)/_
● The is . 2 * __
● Each instance contains multiple agents.
● Each instance’s will refer to a baseline implementation and an advanced
implementation (or best student solution which ever is better):
= (0. 5 *
, 0. 5) + (0. 5 *
−
−
, 0)
● , where is instance id.
∑
÷ 56 × 60
There are up to 60 points available for this question.
Report (50 points)
You need to create a report that describes your approach to each of the questions. This
includes a textual description of your approaches, why you adopted that particular approach
and a thorough discussion along with any supplementary material required (such as pseudo
code, images, graphs, tables…).
Assignment 1 - FIT5222 Planning and automated reasoning
Report Marking Rubric
Criteria N
0%-49%
P
50%-59%
C
60%-69%
D
70%-79%
HD
80%-100%
Description of
your approach
(35 points)
Incomplete or
insufficient
description of
the approach
and/or
pseudo-code
High-level
description of
the approach
and
pseudo-code
+ Discussion and
algorithmic
analysis. E.g.,
time, space,
completeness,
optimality.
+ Reflections:
advantages and
disadvantages
of your
approach(es)
+ Numerical
experiments,
analysing the
efficiency of your
implementations
(e.g. on standard
benchmarks and
vs. appropriate
reference
algorithms)
Communication
skills
(15 points)
Hard to follow
with no clear
narrative.
Inadequate or
no separation
of discussion
text into
coherent
sections.
Writing is not
accurate or
articulate.
Inadequate
supporting
materials.
Inadequate or
missing
referencing.
The writing has
a tenuously
logical
narrative. Some
attempt at the
expected
structural
elements (e.g.
Intro,
conclusion).
Writing is not
accurate or
articulate most
of the time.
The document
has few
supporting
materials
(tables, images,
pseudo-code) .
The student has
attempted to
undertake
citing and
referencing
with frequent
errors.
The text has a
clear logical
narrativae and
expected
structural
elements (e.g.
intro, conclusion).
Writing is not
accurate or
articulate most of
the time.
There are some
supporting
materials (tables,
images,
pseudo-code) but
not well integrated
with the rest of
the text.
The student
follows the
requirements for
citing and
referencing, with
some notable
errors.
The writing is
well composed
and has a clear
and logical
narrative and is
well structured.
Writing is
generally
accurate and
articulate.
The document
has appropriate
supporting
materials that
are well
integrated with
the rest of the
text.
The student
follows the
requirements for
citing
and referencing,
with
some minor
errors.
The writing is very
well composed
and has a very
clear and logically
formed narrative
as a whole.
Writing is accurate
and articulate.
The document is
expertly structured
in the style of a
scientific report,
including
appropriate
supporting
materials that
clearly improve the
quality of
associated
discussion.
The student
follows the
requirements for
citing and
referencing.
Assignment 1 - FIT5222 Planning and automated reasoning
Bonus Points
We will issue bonus points for students implementing multiple approaches for the same
problem, and/or for implementations of algorithms from the scientific literature that are not
discussed during tutorials/lectures (e.g., from one of the recommended papers or
elsewhere). The size of the bonus depends on how ambitious the implementation is, its
effectiveness and the quality of the writeup.
BONUS POINTS CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ‘D’ and ‘HD’
Grades
The total points for the assignment is 150. A passing grade is 50% of total points, which is
75 points.
SUBMISSION
The assignment is due on 9th April 2022 23:55 pm
Submit to Contest Server:
● The contest server and submission instruction will be released soon. You will
receive a notification when it’s ready.
● Follow the FIT5222 Flatland Challenge Submission Instruction to submit your
codes to contest server.
● Your code will be auto marked on the contest server, thus you must submit it to the
contest server.
Submit to Moodle:
1. Your implementation source codes, in a single directory called "src" (you can copy
everything in the piglet folder to "src"). Zip the codes directory with file name
last_name_student_id_flatland.zip. (For example, Chen_123456_flatland.zip)
2. The report describing your approaches as a single pdf file. Name the pdf as
last_name_student_id_report.pdf. (For example, Chen_123456_report.pdf)
3. Submit the two files to the Moodle assignment submission page. (Do not zip the pdf
report, as moodle needs the pdf to generate turnitin report).