Programming Question

We have the following scenario: Our traffic robots travel around London to report on traffic conditions. Every time a robot passes close to a tube station, it assesses the traffic condition in the area, and reports it.

Task:

You should write a program that will have the following actors: one dispatcher and two robots. Each of the robots should “move” on separate threads. The dispatcher will be responsible for passing the points to the robot, and for terminating the simulation. Upon receiving the new points, the robot moves, checks if there is a station near by, and if so, reports on the traffic condition. The information should be posted in such a way that is accessible to any other component of the system.

Notes

• The robots cannot store lots of information, so they have to consume 10 points at a time.
• The simulation should end at 8:10 am, when the robots will receive a “SHUTDOWN” instruction.
• There are two robots, identified by their id: 6403 and 5937. You will find a corresponding file with points (lat/lon) along their routes. The layout of the file is: driver id,latitude,longitude,time
• There is also a file containg lat/lon for London's tube stations. The layout of the file is: description,lat,lon
• The traffic information should have the following format:
  • Robot id
  • Time
  • Speed
  • Conditions of traffic (HEAVY, LIGHT, MODERATE). This could be a simple random choice.

Remarks

1. Assume that the robots follow a straight line between each point, travelling at constant speed.
2. Disregard the fact that the start time is not in sync. The dispatcher can start pumping data as soon as it has read the files.
3. A nearby station should be less than 350 meters from the robot's position.

Deliverables

The assignment should be delivered as a command line program that allows the user to start the simulation, and see (on the console or log file), the communications between robots and dispatcher.

This is a fairly open assignment, in terms of how you structure the solution. You will be judged on the overall quality of the code (simplicity, presentation, performance).

The task should take no more than 4 hours to do. Your solution, as well as more complex ideas, improvements, and suggestions will be discussed at the interview stage.