AutoDRIVE Race Control Tower

AutoDRIVE Race Control Tower (RCT) is a Socket.IO-aware proxy for the AutoDRIVE RoboRacer H2H Simulator. It lets one simulator interact with two independent DevKit bridge instances without changing the existing AutoDRIVE bridge payload schema or the DevKit bridge code.

flowchart LR
    sim["AutoDRIVE H2H Simulator<br/>(Socket.IO client)<br/>/socket.io/"]
    rct["AutoDRIVE RCT<br/>(aiohttp + Socket.IO proxy)"]
    ui["RCT Web Frontend<br/>(monitor WS client)<br/>/monitor/WS/latest"]
    dk1["DevKit Instance 1<br/>assigned simulator id: 1<br/>expects roboracer_1 / V1"]
    dk2["DevKit Instance 2<br/>assigned simulator id: 2<br/>expects roboracer_1 / V1"]

    sim <-->|"AutoDRIVE Bridge Protocol downstream"| rct
    ui <-->|"connection status, monitoring only"| rct
    rct <-->|"AutoDRIVE Bridge Protocol upstream"| dk1
    rct <-->|"AutoDRIVE Bridge Protocol upstream"| dk2

    rct -->|"id 1 data stays id 1"| dk1
    dk1 -->|"id 1 commands stay id 1"| rct
    rct -->|"sim id 2 data -> id 1"| dk2
    dk2 -->|"id 1 commands -> sim id 2"| rct

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Purpose

The stock DevKit bridge expects to control roboracer_1. In a head-to-head simulator run, each DevKit instance still receives vehicle data as roboracer_1, while RCT maps each connected DevKit instance to a simulator vehicle id:

• Simulator to DevKit: vehicle-specific data for the assigned simulator vehicle is rewritten to id 1.
• DevKit to Simulator: commands produced by the DevKit for id 1 are rewritten back to the assigned simulator vehicle id.

Example mapping:

• Simulator data /autodrive/roboracer_2/ips is sent to DevKit 2 as /autodrive/roboracer_1/ips.
• DevKit 2 command /autodrive/roboracer_1/throttle_command is sent to the simulator as /autodrive/roboracer_2/throttle_command.
• AutoDRIVE bridge dictionary fields such as V2 Position are sent to DevKit 2 as V1 Position.
• DevKit 2 fields such as V1 Throttle are sent back to the simulator as V2 Throttle.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Simulator
    participant RCT
    participant DevKit2 as DevKit Instance 2

    Simulator->>RCT: /autodrive/roboracer_2/ips or V2 Position
    RCT->>DevKit2: /autodrive/roboracer_1/ips or V1 Position
    DevKit2->>RCT: /autodrive/roboracer_1/throttle_command or V1 Throttle
    RCT->>Simulator: /autodrive/roboracer_2/throttle_command or V2 Throttle

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Connection Model

• RCT HTTP frontend: http://<rct-host>:4567/
• AutoDRIVE Simulator Socket.IO client: ws://<rct-host>:4567/socket.io/?EIO=4&transport=websocket
• RCT monitor REST endpoint: http://<rct-host>:4567/monitor/REST/latest
• RCT browser monitor client: ws://<rct-host>:4567/monitor/WS/latest
• DevKit upstream 1: configured by RCT_DEVKIT_URLS
• DevKit upstream 2: configured by RCT_DEVKIT_URLS

By default, DevKit 1 is assigned simulator vehicle id 1 and DevKit 2 is assigned simulator vehicle id 2.

When a simulator connects to RCT through Socket.IO, RCT starts connecting to the configured DevKit bridge instances as Socket.IO clients. DevKit URLs can be configured with ws://, wss://, http://, or https://; RCT normalizes ws:// to http:// and wss:// to https:// for python-socketio while still forcing the WebSocket transport.

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• aiohttp
• python-socketio
• Docker, optional

Install

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

The host workspace does not provide pip or ensurepip, so the freeze was verified inside the Docker image. The resulting pip freeze output is:

aiohappyeyeballs==2.6.1
aiohttp==3.13.5
aiosignal==1.4.0
attrs==26.1.0
frozenlist==1.8.0
idna==3.11
multidict==6.7.1
propcache==0.4.1
python-engineio==3.13.0
python-socketio==4.2.0
six==1.17.0
typing_extensions==4.15.0
yarl==1.23.0

Run Locally

export RCT_DEVKIT_URLS="ws://127.0.0.1:4568,ws://127.0.0.1:4569"
export RCT_DEVKIT_VEHICLE_IDS="1,2"
python3 -m rct

Environment variables:

Name	Default	Description
RCT_HOST	0.0.0.0	RCT HTTP/Socket.IO bind host
RCT_PORT	4567	RCT HTTP/Socket.IO port
RCT_DEVKIT_URLS	ws://127.0.0.1:4568,ws://127.0.0.1:4569	Comma-separated DevKit endpoints created at startup and connected when the simulator connects
RCT_DEVKIT_VEHICLE_IDS	1,2,...	Comma-separated simulator vehicle ids assigned to each DevKit URL
RCT_RECONNECT_DELAY_SECONDS	3.0	Delay before reconnecting to a DevKit endpoint
RCT_MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE	16777216	Maximum HTTP/WebSocket message size. Use 0 or less for no limit
RCT_CLIENT_QUEUE_SIZE	256	Outbound queue size per DevKit connection
RCT_PING_INTERVAL_SECONDS	20	Socket.IO ping interval
RCT_PING_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	20	Socket.IO ping timeout
RCT_MONITOR_WS_HZ	0.0	Monitor WebSocket publish frequency for cached status and telemetry snapshots. Use 0 or less to publish telemetry immediately on input
RCT_MONITOR_FRAME_EVENTS	false	Broadcast DevKit/RCT-to-simulator frame observation events to monitor WebSocket clients
RCT_DEBUG_ENGINEIO_MESSAGES	false	Log raw Engine.IO message packets for compatibility debugging
RCT_DEBUG_ENGINEIO_MAX_CHARS	2000	Maximum raw Engine.IO packet preview length
RCT_DEBUG_SOCKETIO_CLIENT	false	Enable python-socketio client logs for DevKit connections
RCT_DEBUG_ENGINEIO_CLIENT	false	Enable python-engineio client logs for DevKit connections, including ping/pong and transport close details
RCT_DEBUG_SOCKETIO_SERVER	false	Enable python-socketio server logs for simulator connections
RCT_DEBUG_ENGINEIO_SERVER	false	Enable python-engineio server logs for simulator connections
RCT_DEBUG_BRIDGE_FLOW	false	Log compact ANSI-colored Bridge flow timeline
RCT_LOG_BRIDGE_MESSAGES	false	Pretty-print incoming simulator Bridge events with LIDAR/camera values omitted
RCT_LOG_BRIDGE_MAX_CHARS	20000	Maximum pretty-printed Bridge payload length

Frontend

Run RCT, then open http://localhost:4567/ in a browser. RCT serves frontend/index.html and static assets from the bundled frontend directory. The page uses Bootstrap and connects to the monitor WebSocket endpoint for RCT connection state.

RCT reads the Roboracer 1 and 2 endpoints from RCT_DEVKIT_URLS at startup and connects configured/enabled DevKit bridge instances when the simulator connects, even if the frontend is not open. The frontend sends the Roboracer hostname/port fields to RCT when the monitor WebSocket connects, which updates those endpoints. The Roboracer connected/disconnected buttons can also manually connect or disconnect each DevKit bridge instance.

Monitor Protocol

The browser frontend talks to the RCT server through AutoDRIVE RCT Monitor Protocol. Current version is 0.1; latest is an alias for 0.1.

• REST state endpoint: /monitor/REST/latest
• WebSocket event endpoint: /monitor/WS/latest

Run RCT and open /develop/latest for the protocol reference. REST and WebSocket route descriptions are generated from the server route registration code.

REST monitor snapshots and WS monitor events are backed by the same in-process RaceControlState. Monitor WS fanout is handled separately by MonitorEventHub, so state updates are kept separate from network sends.

Docker

Build the image:

docker build -t autodrive-rct .

Run the container:

docker run --rm \
  -p 4567:4567 \
  -e RCT_DEVKIT_URLS="ws://host.docker.internal:4568,ws://host.docker.internal:4569" \
  -e RCT_DEVKIT_VEHICLE_IDS="1,2" \
  autodrive-rct

On Linux, add --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway if host.docker.internal is not available, or place RCT and the DevKit instances on the same Docker network.

The bundled ./run.sh script builds autodrive-rct:dev from the current workspace before running it. It uses Docker host networking, bind mounts the host frontend directory into /app/frontend, and defaults DevKit URLs to ws://127.0.0.1:4568,ws://127.0.0.1:4569.

Frontend Command Format

The bundled frontend does not send commands by default. For manual testing, the browser monitor socket can send JSON commands:

socket.send(JSON.stringify({
  target: "devkit:2",
  event: "message",
  payload: { "V2 Position": "1.0 2.0 0.0" }
}));

Supported targets:

• simulator
• all-devkits
• devkit:1
• devkit:2

When targeting DevKit connections, RCT applies the same simulator-to-DevKit id rewrite before sending the payload upstream as a Socket.IO event.

Protocol Notes

RCT handles both common AutoDRIVE id forms:

• ROS-style strings containing roboracer_<id>, such as /autodrive/roboracer_2/ips
• DevKit bridge dictionary fields using V<id> prefixes, such as V2 LIDAR Range Array

Binary payload values are forwarded without id rewriting. Use text, dict, or list payloads when id rewriting is required.

The AutoDRIVE simulator and public RoboRacer DevKit bridge use Socket.IO over WebSocket transport. RCT uses aiohttp for HTTP/static/monitor routes and python-socketio for simulator and DevKit bridge sessions.

License

This project is licensed under the BSD 2-Clause License. See LICENSE.