Fair Play in the Fast Lane: Integrating Sportsmanship into Autonomous Racing Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Huang, Zhenmin, Hao, Ce, Zhan, Wei, Ma, Jun, Tomizuka, Masayoshi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Huang, Zhenmin
Hao, Ce
Zhan, Wei
Ma, Jun
Tomizuka, Masayoshi
author_facet Huang, Zhenmin
Hao, Ce
Zhan, Wei
Ma, Jun
Tomizuka, Masayoshi
contents Autonomous racing has gained significant attention as a platform for high-speed decision-making and motion control. While existing methods primarily focus on trajectory planning and overtaking strategies, the role of sportsmanship in ensuring fair competition remains largely unexplored. In human racing, rules such as the one-motion rule and the enough-space rule prevent dangerous and unsportsmanlike behavior. However, autonomous racing systems often lack mechanisms to enforce these principles, potentially leading to unsafe maneuvers. This paper introduces a bi-level game-theoretic framework to integrate sportsmanship (SPS) into versus racing. At the high level, we model racing intentions using a Stackelberg game, where Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is employed to derive optimal strategies. At the low level, vehicle interactions are formulated as a Generalized Nash Equilibrium Problem (GNEP), ensuring that all agents follow sportsmanship constraints while optimizing their trajectories. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in enforcing sportsmanship rules while maintaining competitive performance. We analyze different scenarios where attackers and defenders adhere to or disregard sportsmanship rules and show how knowledge of these constraints influences strategic decision-making. This work highlights the importance of balancing competition and fairness in autonomous racing and provides a foundation for developing ethical and safe AI-driven racing systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_03774
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fair Play in the Fast Lane: Integrating Sportsmanship into Autonomous Racing Systems
Huang, Zhenmin
Hao, Ce
Zhan, Wei
Ma, Jun
Tomizuka, Masayoshi
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science and Game Theory
Robotics
Systems and Control
Autonomous racing has gained significant attention as a platform for high-speed decision-making and motion control. While existing methods primarily focus on trajectory planning and overtaking strategies, the role of sportsmanship in ensuring fair competition remains largely unexplored. In human racing, rules such as the one-motion rule and the enough-space rule prevent dangerous and unsportsmanlike behavior. However, autonomous racing systems often lack mechanisms to enforce these principles, potentially leading to unsafe maneuvers. This paper introduces a bi-level game-theoretic framework to integrate sportsmanship (SPS) into versus racing. At the high level, we model racing intentions using a Stackelberg game, where Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is employed to derive optimal strategies. At the low level, vehicle interactions are formulated as a Generalized Nash Equilibrium Problem (GNEP), ensuring that all agents follow sportsmanship constraints while optimizing their trajectories. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in enforcing sportsmanship rules while maintaining competitive performance. We analyze different scenarios where attackers and defenders adhere to or disregard sportsmanship rules and show how knowledge of these constraints influences strategic decision-making. This work highlights the importance of balancing competition and fairness in autonomous racing and provides a foundation for developing ethical and safe AI-driven racing systems.
title Fair Play in the Fast Lane: Integrating Sportsmanship into Autonomous Racing Systems
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science and Game Theory
Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.03774