Related papers: How morphological development can guide evolution
We propose a simple model for genetic adaptation to a changing environment, describing a fitness landscape characterized by two maxima. One is associated with "specialist" individuals that are adapted to the environment; this maximum moves…
Previous evolutionary studies demonstrated how evaluating evolving agents in variable environmental conditions enable them to develop solutions that are robust to environmental variation. We demonstrate how the robustness of the agents can…
For robots to handle the numerous factors that can affect 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 specific…
The process of evolutionary emergence of purposeful adaptive behavior is investigated by means of computer simulations. The model proposed implies that there is an evolving population of simple agents, which have two natural needs: energy…
The intelligent behavior of robots does not emerge solely from control systems, but from the tight coupling between body and brain, a principle known as embodied intelligence. Designing soft robots that leverage this interaction remains a…
An approach to robotics called layered evolution and merging features from the subsumption architecture into evolutionary robotics is presented, and its advantages are discussed. This approach is used to construct a layered controller for a…
Humans and animals excel in combining information from multiple sensory modalities, controlling their complex bodies, adapting to growth, failures, or using tools. These capabilities are also highly desirable in robots. They are displayed…
Biological genotypes do not code directly for phenotypes; developmental physiology is the control layer that separates genomes from capacities ascertained by selection. A key aspect is competency, as cells are not a passive material but…
Evolutionary robot systems are usually affected by the properties of the environment indirectly through selection. In this paper, we present and investigate a system where the environment also has a direct effect: through regulation. We…
The idea that a genetically fixed behavior evolved from the once differential learning ability of individuals that performed the behavior is known as the Baldwin effect. A highly influential paper [Hinton G.E., Nowlan S.J., 1987. How…
Self-evolving agents offer a promising path toward scalable autonomy. However, in this work, we show that in competitive environments, self-evolution can instead give rise to a serious and previously underexplored risk: the spontaneous…
Urban structures encompass settlements, characterized by the spatial distribution of built-up areas, but also transportation structures, to connect these built-up areas. These two structures are very different in their origin and function,…
Autonomous agents can adapt their behaviour to changing environments, but remain bound to requirements, goals, and capabilities fixed at design time, preventing genuine software evolution. This paper introduces self-evolving software…
Representations are internal models of the environment that can provide guidance to a behaving agent, even in the absence of sensory information. It is not clear how representations are developed and whether or not they are necessary or…
The co-optimization of a robot's body and brain presents a coupled challenge: the morphology constrains which control strategies are effective, while the control determines how well the morphology performs. To address this, we combine…
Evolutionary success depends on the capacity to adapt: organisms must respond to environmental challenges through both genetic innovation and lifetime learning. The gene-centric paradigm attributes evolutionary causality exclusively to…
When limited by their own morphologies, humans and some species of animals have the remarkable ability to use objects from the environment toward accomplishing otherwise impossible tasks. Robots might similarly unlock a range of additional…
It has recently been suggested that the fundamental haploid-diploid cycle of eukaryotic sex exploits a rudimentary form of the Baldwin effect. Thereafter the other associated phenomena can be explained as evolution tuning the amount and…
A robotic swarm that is required to operate for long periods in a potentially unknown environment can use both evolution and individual learning methods in order to adapt. However, the role played by the environment in influencing the…
Natural beings undergo a morphological development process of their bodies while they are learning and adapting to the environments they face from infancy to adulthood. In fact, this is the period where the most important learning…