Abstract
Evolutionary robotics uses evolutionary computation to optimize physically embodied agents. We present here a framework for performing off-line evolution of a pluripotent robot controller that manages to form multicellular robotic organisms from a swarm of autonomously moving small robot modules. We describe our evolutionary framework, show first results and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our off-line evolution approach. In detail, we explain the single parts of the framework and a novel homeostatic hormone-based controller, which is shaped by artificial evolution to control both, the non-aggregated single robotic modules and the joined high-level robotic organisms. As a first step we present results of this evolutionary shaped controller showing the potential for different motion behaviours.
Supported by: EU-IST-FET project ‘SYMBRION’, no. 216342; EU-ICT project ‘REPLICATOR’, no. 216240.
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Stradner, J., Hamann, H., Schmickl, T., Thenius, R., Crailsheim, K. (2011). Evolving a Novel Bio-inspired Controller in Reconfigurable Robots. In: Kampis, G., Karsai, I., Szathmáry, E. (eds) Advances in Artificial Life. Darwin Meets von Neumann. ECAL 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5777. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21283-3_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21283-3_17
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