To act cohesively as a group, robot swarms must be able to make decisions collectively. Collective decision-making refers to a process in which once a group decision is reached, it cannot be attributed to any single i...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9798400701191
To act cohesively as a group, robot swarms must be able to make decisions collectively. Collective decision-making refers to a process in which once a group decision is reached, it cannot be attributed to any single individual. Although extensive research has been conducted in swarm robotics using hand-coded design techniques to develop individual mechanisms for collective decision-making, the proposed mechanisms are generally limited in terms of robustness, scalability, and adaptability. In this paper, we employ evolutionary computation techniques to synthesise neural network-based decision-modules underpinning the individual opinion selection in robots. We describe the group dynamics underlying the decision process that leads to consensus in a three-option perceptual discrimination task. We test the robustness, scalability and adaptability of the decision-module in a variety of conditions. We show that the decision-making mechanisms underpinned by the evolved decision-module are more effective in supporting the collective decision-making process than the hand-coded voter and majority models, both in terms of accuracy and with respect to time to convergence to consensus.
For robots to handle the numerous factors that can afect them in the real world, they must adapt to changes and unexpected events. evolutionary robotics tries to solve some of these issues by automatically optimizing ...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450356183
For robots to handle the numerous factors that can afect them in the real world, they must adapt to changes and unexpected events. evolutionary robotics tries to solve some of these issues by automatically optimizing a robot for a speciic environment. Most of the research in this ield, however, uses simpliied representations of the robotic system in software simulations. The large gap between performance in simulation and the real world makes it challenging to transfer the resulting robots to the real world. In this paper, we apply real world multi-objective evolutionary optimization to optimize both control and morphology of a four-legged mammal-inspired robot. We change the supply voltage of the system, reducing the available torque and speed of all joints, and study how this afects both the itness, as well as the morphology and control of the solutions. In addition to demonstrating that this realworld evolutionary scheme for morphology and control is indeed feasible with relatively few evaluations, we show that evolution under the diferent hardware limitations results in comparable performance for low and moderate speeds, and that the search achieves this by adapting both the control and the morphology of the robot.
Autonomous robots are increasingly used in remote and hazardous environments, where damage to sensory-actuator systems cannot be easily repaired. Such robots must therefore have controllers that continue to function e...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450383509
Autonomous robots are increasingly used in remote and hazardous environments, where damage to sensory-actuator systems cannot be easily repaired. Such robots must therefore have controllers that continue to function effectively given unexpected malfunctions and damage to robot morphology. This study applies the Intelligent Trial and Error (IT&E) algorithm to adapt hexapod robot control to various leg failures and demonstrates the IT&E map-size parameter as a critical parameter in influencing IT&E adaptive task performance. We evaluate robot adaptation for multiple leg failures on two different map-sizes in simulation and validate evolved controllers on a physical hexapod robot. Results demonstrate a trade-off between adapted gait speed and adaptation duration, dependent on adaptation task complexity (leg damage incurred), where map-size is crucial for generating behavioural diversity required for adaptation.
Developmental robotics (also known as epigenctic robotics) is mainly concerned with modeling the postnatal develop ment of cognitive behaviors in living systems, such as language, cmotion, curiosity, anticipation, and...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450311786
Developmental robotics (also known as epigenctic robotics) is mainly concerned with modeling the postnatal develop ment of cognitive behaviors in living systems, such as language, cmotion, curiosity, anticipation, and social skills. While current work in this field has shown significant successes, we believe integrating research on developmental (including epigenctic and morphogenctic) robotics and evolutionary robotics is the natural next step. This workshop aims at bringing together evolutionary robotics and developmental robotics to form a new research area "evolutionary developmental robotics" (evo-devo-robo). The present paper contains the abstracts of the talks given by each of the seven invited speakers. These abstracts cover research in both fields and give an overview of the potential interactions between developmental and evolutionary robotics.
The contribution of this paper is the introduction of an abstract Sensor-Actuator pair to the subsumption architecture of robots introduced by R.A. Brooks. The perceiving side of this pair derives from J.J. Gibson'...
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ISBN:
(纸本)078034054X
The contribution of this paper is the introduction of an abstract Sensor-Actuator pair to the subsumption architecture of robots introduced by R.A. Brooks. The perceiving side of this pair derives from J.J. Gibson's affordance, which is a form of grasping of situations involving perceived objects. This study is part of a new form of evolutionary robotics called cognitive robotics. It considers a new context for a classical form of learning, namely, habitation. The inspiration for the form of affordances described in this paper comes from Heidegger's notion of the convergence of the concurrent activities of building, dwelling, and thinking. In some sense, building and dwelling are at the threshold of thinking. A brief description of the form and functioning of abstract S-A pairs is given.
This paper describes a set of experiments in which a homogeneous group of real e-puck robots is required to coordinate their actions in order to transport cuboid objects that are too heavy to be moved by single robots...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9783319444277;9783319444260
This paper describes a set of experiments in which a homogeneous group of real e-puck robots is required to coordinate their actions in order to transport cuboid objects that are too heavy to be moved by single robots. The agents controllers are dynamic neural networks synthesised through evolutionary computation techniques. To run these experiments, we designed, built, and mounted on the robots a new sensor that returns the agent displacement on the x/y plane. In this object transport scenario, this sensor generates useful feedback on the consequences of the robot actions, helping the robots to perceive whether their pushing forces are aligned with the object movement. The results of our experiments indicated that the best evolved controller can effectively operate on real robots. The group transport strategies turned out to be robust and scalable to effectively operate in a variety of conditions in which we vary physical characteristics of the object and group cardinality. From a biological perspective, the results of this study indicate that the perception of the object movement could explain how natural organisms manage to coordinate their actions to transport heavy items.
Artificial evolution can operate upon reconfigurable electronic circuits to produce efficient and powerful control systems for autonomous mobile robots. Evolving physical hardware instead of control systems simulated ...
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ISBN:
(纸本)3540594965
Artificial evolution can operate upon reconfigurable electronic circuits to produce efficient and powerful control systems for autonomous mobile robots. Evolving physical hardware instead of control systems simulated in software results in more than just a raw speed increase: it is possible to exploit the physical properties of the implementation (such as the semiconductor physics of integrated circuits) to obtain control circuits of unprecedented power. The space of these evolvable circuits is far larger than the space of solutions in which a human designer works, because to make design tractable, a more abstract view than that of detailed physics must be adopted. To allow circuits to be designed at this abstract level, constraints are applied to the design that limit how the natural dynamical behaviour of the components is reflected in the overall behaviour of the system. This paper reasons that these constraints can be removed when using artificial evolution, releasing huge potential even from small circuits. Experimental evidence is given for this argument, including the first reported evolution of a real hardware control system for a real robot.
We construct and investigate a strongly embodied evolutionary system, where not only the controllers but also the morphologies undergo evolution in an on-line fashion. In these studies, we have been using various type...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450349390
We construct and investigate a strongly embodied evolutionary system, where not only the controllers but also the morphologies undergo evolution in an on-line fashion. In these studies, we have been using various types of robot morphologies and controller architectures in combination with several learning algorithms, e.g. evolutionary algorithms, reinforcement learning, simulated annealing, and HyperNEAT. This hands-on experience provides insights and helps us elaborate on interesting research directions for future development.
Biologically inspired designs can improve the design of artificial agents. In this paper we explain and explore the role of directional light sensors from an evolutionary robotics perspective using a dynamical systems...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781595936974
Biologically inspired designs can improve the design of artificial agents. In this paper we explain and explore the role of directional light sensors from an evolutionary robotics perspective using a dynamical systems approach. It was found that by using directionally specific sensors in the agent, there was a simplification of the neural controller employed. This simplification helped not only with the analysis of this type of controller but also improved the behavioural performance of the agents, thereby showing a good example of the ecological balance principle.
We propose a novel approach for transferring evolved control systems from a simulated environment to a real robot. Multiple dynamic simulation systems are simultaneously employed to provide a valid range of simulation...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781467318723;9781467318716
We propose a novel approach for transferring evolved control systems from a simulated environment to a real robot. Multiple dynamic simulation systems are simultaneously employed to provide a valid range of simulation variance that can be exploited to generate robust controllers in a purely virtual environment. These controllers can then be directly transferred to a physical robot.
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