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CS7638 Meteorites Project Solution

Introduction
In this project, Earth is threatened by a shower of meteorites falling in your location. It is your task to take sensor readings of the locations of these meteorites, estimate where each of the meteorites will be one tenth of a second later using Kalman Filters, and finally, destroy each meteorite before it hits the ground by firing your laser turret at it.
This project consists of two parts:
• Estimation—estimate the locations of the meteorites—80% of grade
• Defense—aim and fire your laser turret at incoming meteorites before they hit the ground—20% of grade
Submitting Your Assignment
Your submission will consist of ONLY the turret.py file, which you will upload to Gradescope. Do not archive (zip, tar, etc.) it. Your code must be valid Python version 3 code; it will be graded with Python 3.9.
Your Python file must execute NO code when imported. We encourage you to keep any testing code in a separate file that you do not submit. Your code should also NOT display a GUI or visualization when we import or call your function under test. If we have to manually edit your code to comment out your own testing harness or visualization, you will receive a -20 point penalty.
Detailed Project Description
The motion model of the meteorites is of the form
t2
x(t) = cposx + cvelxt + Sacccacc 2
for the meteorite’s x-position, and
t2
y(t) = cposy + cvelyt + cacc
2
for its y-position. Sacc = is a constant.
Time is delimited in discrete steps (t = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, ...). Each timestep is 0.1 seconds in duration. Each meteorite’s motion can be modeled using x,y,dx,dy,a, similarly to how we modeled example systems in the lectures. a is acceleration; note that the x- and y-componenents of the meteorites’ motion are correlated! See the “Note on Deriving the F Matrix for Meteorites” PDF on Canvas (located in Canvas > Files > Misc. Tutorials) for details on how to derive the state transition matrix from the above equations of motion. The Kalman Filter tutorial located in the same directory is also a helpful resource for this project.
Your turret’s observations of the meteorites’ positions are noisy, so you will leverage the uncertainty-handling properties of Kalman Filters to help you estimate their positions more precisely.
Environment:
In this project, your world is a 2-unit-by-2-unit square, with the X-range [-1, 1] and Y-range [-1, 1]; (-1, -1) is the lower left corner, and your turret is located at (0, -1). All meteorite locations and estimates will be with respect to this coordinate system. Meteorites fall from the upper portion of the box to the ground, with the ground being y = -1. The laser turret’s aim angle is 0.0 rad when the laser is pointed along the ground to the right, and π rad when the laser points along the ground to the left.
Next, we detail the functions you will be modifying in turret.py for each part of the project.
Estimation: Function observe_and_estimate
For the estimation part of the project, you will be estimating the location of each meteorite visible on the screen one timestep in the future given the noisy measurements of meteorite locations you have for the current timestep (noisy_meteorite_observations).
Inputs:
The observe_and_estimate function takes in a tuple of tuples of meteorite ID numbers, x-coordinates, and y-coordinates; that is, the
noisy_meteorite_observations argument has the form
((0, -0.83, 0.46),
(1, 0.44, 0.8), (3, -0.72, -0.3), ...
(1003, 0.34, 0.1))
Note that the meteorites in noisy_meteorite_observations are not guaranteed to be sorted in any sort of order, so do not expect the ID numbers to be sequential.
Outputs:
The output of the observe_and_estimate function should be a tuple of tuples of estimated meteorite locations one timestep into the future.
Goal:
To get full credit for the estimation part of the project, your observe_and_estimate function will need to provide “close enough” estimates of all meteorites within the 2-by-2 box within 500 timesteps (50 seconds) (and on Gradescope or when using test_all.py, 10 real-world “wall-time” seconds) for at least five (5) consecutive timesteps. A meteorite location estimate is close enough when the Euclidean distance between the estimate and the actual location is less than 0.02 units. If 90% of your meteorite estimates for a case are close enough for five consecutive timesteps within 500 timesteps or (when using test_all.py) ten wall-time seconds—whichever is shorter—you’ll get full credit for that case’s estimation portion. Passing back estimations for non-existent meteorites (e.g. meteorites that have hit the ground and have an ID of -1) will not affect your score.
How To Test Your Estimation Code
python test_one.py --case 1 --display turtle estimate
When you run the estimation case with the turtle visualization option, you should see something like what is shown in the image below. The gray circles represent the actual locations of meteorites. A red dot indicates an estimation that is too far from the meteorite’s actual location to count as correct, and a green dot indicates an estimate close enough to be counted as correct.

HINT: On line 24 of turtle_display.py, change the DEBUG_DISPLAY variable to True to show meteorite IDs in the GUI.
A similar command lets you run the test with only text output (no visualization).
Defense: Function get_laser_action
For the defense part of the project, you will be devising a simple algorithm to aim and fire your laser turret at falling meteorites. The defense part of the project makes use of the estimations of the meteorite locations computed by observe_and_estimate in the estimation portion of the project. (HINT: Don’t over-think your strategy here; perhaps simply aiming at the lowest meteorite above some minimum threshold is sufficient!) A meteorite is destroyed with probability 0.75 if the laser line comes within a small distance (0.02 units) of it. The laser line itself is 1.1 units of length long, measured from the turret. The laser can only fire a limited number of shots before it runs out of power; the number of shots remaining are displayed in the GUI or command line output.
Inputs:
This function takes in a float corresponding to the laser turret’s current aim angle, in radians.
Outputs:
The output of this function is either a float or a string:
• Float: The change in aim angle (in radians) you want the laser to move; if the magnitude of this value is greater than max_angle_change (0.0873 rad; approximately 5 degrees), it will be lowered to max_angle_change rad, but with the sign of the angle you outputted.
• String: Outputting the string 'fire' will cause the laser turret to fire.
The laser cannot move and fire at the same time. Note that trying to move the laser’s aim outside of the [0, π] range will result in its aim being clamped to 0 or π, respectively. The laser’s aim angle does NOT wrap around—if you output an angle change that would set the laser’s current aim to, say, 3.3 rad, the laser’s aim will stay π rad until you change the laser’s aim back to within the [0, π] range.
Goal:
Your goal in the defense part of the project is to make sure your laser turret survives for 500 timesteps. Your laser turret starts with a specific number of health points (HP), which are shown below the turret in turtle simulation mode and printed to the command line in text mode. Each time a meteorite hits the turret or the ground (y = -1), the turret loses one HP. Credit is given for a case if the turret’s HP is 1 or greater by the end of the 500-second bout (on Gradescope and in test_all.py, there is also a 45-second wall-time time limit); no credit is given if the turret’s HP drops to 0 within that time limit.
How To Test Your Defense Code
When you run the above command, you should see something like the image below.

HINT: On line 24 of turtle_display.py, change the DEBUG_DISPLAY variable to True to show meteorite IDs in the GUI.
Testing Everything
To test all eight of the local estimate and defense cases using the text display option, use the command python test_all.py
This is the testing mode used by Gradescope.
Generating New Test Cases
The cases used for grading on Gradescope are not the same as those provided to you, though they are very similar. If you wish to generate additional test cases to more rigorously test your code, you can use generate_test_case.py to generate new test cases. For reference, here is the guidance that is printed to the console when running the --help argument with generate_test_case.py:
python generate_test_case.py --help usage: Generate parameters for a test case and write them to file.
[-h] [--turret_x TURRET_X] [--turret_hp TURRET_HP]
[--laser_shots_remaining LASER_SHOTS_REMAINING] [--t_past T_PAST]
[--t_future T_FUTURE] [--t_step T_STEP]
[--noise_sigma_x NOISE_SIGMA_X] [--noise_sigma_y NOISE_SIGMA_Y]
[--nsteps NSTEPS] [--meteorite_c_pos_max METEORITE_C_POS_MAX]
[--meteorite_c_vel_max METEORITE_C_VEL_MAX] [--min_dist MIN_DIST] [--max_angle_change MAX_ANGLE_CHANGE] [--seed SEED] outfile
positional arguments:
outfile name of file to write optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--turret_x TURRET_X X-location of turret (should be in the range (-1.0, 1.0))
--turret_hp TURRET_HP
Turret's initial health point count
--num_laser_shots NUM_LASER_SHOTS
Initial number of laser shots turret can fire
--t_past T_PAST time in past (negative integer) from which to start generating meteorites
--t_future T_FUTURE time into future (positive integer) at which to stop
generating meteorites
--t_step T_STEP add a meteorite every N-th time step
--noise_sigma_x NOISE_SIGMA_X sigma of Gaussian noise applied to the x-component of meteorite measurements
--noise_sigma_y NOISE_SIGMA_Y
sigma of Gaussian noise applied to the
y-component of meteorite measurements
--min_y_init MIN_Y_INIT
Lowest initial meteorite y-coordinate
--max_y_init MAX_Y_INIT
Maximum initial meteorite y-coordinate
--nsteps NSTEPS Number of timesteps to simulate
--dt DT Duration of a single timestep
--meteorite_c_pos_max METEORITE_C_POS_MAX maximum magnitude for meteorite position term coefficient
--meteorite_c_vel_max METEORITE_C_VEL_MAX maximum magnitude for meteorite velocity term coefficient
--min_dist MIN_DIST minimum distance estimate must be from meteorite location to be considered correct; also, if the laser comes within this distance of a meteorite, the meteorite is destroyed with p=0.75.
--max_angle_change MAX_ANGLE_CHANGE maximum increment of the laser's angle, in radians
--seed SEED random seed to use when generating meteorites
To create a new case, run as follows:
python generate_test_case.py my_case.py [additional arguments here] To use this new test case, pass the filename to test_one.py using the --case argument:
python test_one.py --case my_case.py --display turtle defense
Note: New case files must have the .py extension to be imported correctly by the test_one.py code, and are not included in the cases executed by test_all.py.
FAQ
How do Kalman Filters apply in this project?
As we know the structure of the motion model that governs the motion of the meteorites, we can use Kalman filters to track their locations. Each meteorite has different coefficients in their equations of motion, but for an individual meteorite, those coefficients are constant; thus, we need to estimate as many models as there are meteorites. That is a good indicator that we can initialize one Kalman filter for each meteorite—we will have (# meteorites) KFs—and use our noisy measurments over time to improve our estimates of where each individual meteorite will be one timestep from now. You’ll want to create and update separate x¯s and Ps for each meteorite, using the Kalman filter equations.
The state transition matrix (aka motion model matrix, F), measurement model matrix (H), and uncertainty matrices should all be constant and the same for all meteorites. Take a look at the Kalman Filter tutorial and the “Note on Deriving the F Matrix for Meteorites” PDFs on Canvas under Files > Misc. Tutorials for thorough explanations.
How do I share data between observe_and_estimate, get_laser_action, and other functions in my Turret class?
In your implementation of Turret, you can refer to the current turret instance using self and attach additional data to it. Here is an example of creating a value variable in a Counter class that can be used in other functions in the Counter class: class Counter(object):
def __init__(self):
self.value = 0
def increment(self):
self.value += 1
def show(self):
print(self.value)
ctr = Counter() ctr.increment() ctr.increment()
ctr.show() # should display '2'
Why do I get less credit on Gradescope than I do on my local machine?
Keep in mind that your local computer is likely faster than the virtual machine Gradescope is using to run your code; is there any way you can make your code a little more efficient? Also, when running test_one.py for an estimation case, there is no wall-time time limit applied; the estimation only needs to be completed within 500 timesteps of simulation. When running test_all.py, which is what Gradescope uses, each estimation case is given 10 seconds and each defense case is given 45 seconds; execution time greater than those limits for a case results in an execution_time_exceeded result.
Are the cases we have access to the same as the cases used for grading on Gradescope?
No, the case files used on Gradescope are not the same as the cases you download from Canvas. We do our best to make sure that the cases you have access to are similar in difficulty level to the ones on Gradescope.
How do I get help with my code?
No, please use Python 3.6 or later–preferably Python 3.9. The autograder on Gradescope uses Python 3.9.

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