Java Programming

Hi everyone. I'm new here (and to Java too) and I have a programming assignment problem where I'm supposed to make the AI agent for a tank "capture the flag" game. Basically, the tank controlled by my AI is not given any information about the environment (the map in this case) and it can only know what is directly ahead of it, but it is supposed to navigate around the map, locate the flag and then return it to a base - the location of the base is also not known and the agent is supposed to find it. The movement of the agent is constrained to moving forward, moving backward, turning left and turning right. There are obstacles (like crates, walls) and "health packs" scattered all over the map. Furthermore, there will be other agents in the environment which I have to attack in order to prevent them from capturing the flag, but I will leave that out for the moment and concentrate on the core objectives of the game which is navigating the map, finding the flag and returning the flag to the base. The flag will be reset to its original location once it is returned to the base and the agent who returned it will score points.

The basic idea I have after doing some Google research (and thus ending up here) is that I have to create an internal representation of the map, store the information of the environment as I move along, mark the locations the obstacles, the flag and the base and then use a search algorithm (A* search, quadtree or genetic algorithm?) to determine the shortest path from the flag to the base. But how do I build the map? What data structure to use? How do i backtrack when I'm stuck? How do I represent the location of my agent since I have no coordinate system and any knowledge of my surroundings, except what is in front of me? I appreciate any help I can get. Thanks in advance.