By GROUP 6
For this study, it was of importance to investigate the use of function approximators that can extract relational local sensory data from images, which is commonly obtained by traditional video game AI by raycasting. Raycasting is particularly useful for obstacle avoidance and planning tasks in video games. The concrete example of object avoidance that will be investigated in this study is the video game called 'Flappy Bird'. 'Flappy Bird' is a simple 2D game, in which the player controls a bird character - that travels at a constant horizontal velocity through a 2D world containing pipe-like obstacles - by applying the 'flap' control action. The 'flap' control action increases the value of the bird character's vertical position relative to the observable frame. If the 'flap' action is not applied, the vertical position of the bird character in the frame decreases, in accordance with a gravity-like function. The gif shows samples in our study.
