Blue Carousel Challenge
Learn a blue boat to rotate around a buoy
29-30 juin 2026, Moulin-Mer
Luc Jaulin, Natacha Caouren, Toméo Bourin, Matheus Benigno, Quentin Brateau, Antoine Morvan, Romain Bornier

Lab-STICC CRNS GDR Robotique ENSTA Bretagne DGA GDR MACS ROBEX








The song :










Goal

The goal of the Blue Carousel Challenge (Blue for the blue boats and carousel since it should turn forever) is to use reinforcement learning to build a controller for the blue boat to rotate around a buoy, autonomously.
The buoy is located at the origin (0,0).
The real robot is an autonomous surface vehicles (a Blue Boat).
The robot is equipped with:
  • Two propellers (u1: left and u2 right)
  • State information: position (x,y) and heading θ








The blue boat turns around the buoy forever





The controller receives the robot's pose as input:

  • x: horizontal position
  • y: vertical position
  • sin(θ): sine of the heading angle
  • cos(θ): cosine of the heading angle
The sine and cose are used to capture the geometry of the set of angles (a disk not a line).



Controller requirements

The controller must be implemented exclusively as a neural network. No additional logic, rules, or control algorithms are allowed.

The neural network architecture is the following:
  • Input layer: 4 inputs (x, y, sin(θ), cos(θ))
  • Hidden layer 1: 8 neurons
  • Hidden layer 2: 8 neurons
  • Output layer: 2 outputs (u1, u2)

The outputs correspond to the commands sent to the two propellers:

  • u1: left propeller command
  • u2: right propeller command



The neural network contains exactly 112 parameters: the weights.








Submission Format

Teams must submit their controller as a CSV file containing the 112 parameters:

  • Only the parameters are allowed
  • No additional code or metadata
  • The robot will use these parameters directly onboard



Simulation Environment

A realistic simulator based on Unity is provided to help teams:

  • Test their controller
  • Train neural network parameters
  • Evaluate performance before deployment







Doc (programs, ...)




Composition of the teams, programs, ... are given here :

The slides of the presentation are given here :













Galerie



Inspection de la zone par Lionel, le chef de Robex






Equipe 1






Equipe 2






Equipe 3






Equipe 4






Equipe 5






Travaux dans la salle






Deux équipes gagnantes que la wheel n'a pas su départager






Les deux équipes gagnantes fusionnées






Photo de groupe







Vidéo associée à l'événement