Bubbles

SMARTS provides the concept of a spatial-temporal bubble which allows for focused simulation interaction. Bubbles are intended to address the problem of scaling of interaction. Using resources globally results in wasted simulation resources if the most important behavior to an autonomous vehicle is in the nearby vicinity of that vehicle.

A bubble covers an area and filters traffic vehicles that pass through that zone. A vehicle entering the bubble will first pass into an airlock buffer area of shadowing where an agent may begin observing from the vehicle. The agent may then fully take over control of that vehicle when it enters the bubble proper. SMARTS will replace control of the traffic vehicles with the agents specified by the bubble definition. The bubble agent will relinquish its control to a suitable traffic provider when its controlled vehicle exits the bubble and airlock regions.

Limitations

If a vehicle whose trajectory is being provided from a traffic history dataset is taken over by an agent within a bubble, the vehicle generally cannot be returned to the trajectory specified in the history dataset upon bubble exit without a “jump” or “glitch” due to the plurality of situations where there is a divergence of vehicle states from the history within the bubble. So instead, the simple SMARTS traffic provider assumes control of it at this point and will attempt to navigate it to its original destination, avoiding collisions along the way.

Usage

Fixed bubbles

Bubbles can be fixed to a static location defined either as an edge or a position.

import smarts.sstudio.sstypes as t
zoo_agent_actor = t.SocialAgentActor(
    # Unique agent name
    name="zoo-agent",
    # Formatted like (<python_module>\.*)+:[A-Za-z\-_]+(-v[0-9]+)?
    agent_locator=f"zoo.policies:zoo-agent-v0",
)
t.Bubble(
    # Edge snapped bubble
    zone=t.MapZone(start=("edge-west-WE", 0, 50), length=10, n_lanes=1),
    # Margin is an area where agents get observations but not control
    margin=2,
    # Agent actor information
    actor=zoo_agent_actor,
),

Moving bubbles

Bubbles that are vehicle-relative can be attached to specific actors by specifying the id of the actor in the bubble definition.

import smarts.sstudio.sstypes as t
t.Bubble(
    ...,
    # The target of the bubble to follow the given actor
    follow_actor_id=t.Bubble.to_actor_id(laner_actor, mission_group="all"),
    # The offset from the target actor's vehicle(aligned with that vehicle's orientation)
    follow_offset=(-7, 10),
),

Dynamic Bubbles

There is currently no interface for dynamically-created bubbles. However, if the scenario is exposed then the following is possible to define a bubble outside of scenario studio:

import smarts.sstudio.sstypes as t
scenario_iter = Scenario.scenario_variations(path)
scenario = next(scenario)
scenario.bubbles.append(
    t.Bubble(
        ...,
    ),
)
smarts.reset(scenario)