System Architecture

Tron is implemented as a client/sever application with three main components (fig. 3.4),

• Java Front End. A Java applet that runs on web browsers, playing Tron between a human and an agent.
• Main (Foreground) Server. An Internet web server and SQL database that hosts a population of Tron agents, evolving it against humanity. This server records all games played, computes fitness and decides which agents live and die.
• Novelty (Background) Engine. An application that evolves Tron agents by self-play. It sends new agents to the Foreground Server whenever they are needed, and receives veteran champions to be used as fitness measures and/or seeds for a new population.
  
    

  Figure 3.4: Scheme of information flow. Agents travel to users' computers to play games. Those with poorest performances are eliminated. A novelty engine creates new players. The better ones are added to the population, filling the empty slots.