Strengths and synergies of evolved and designed controllers: A study within collective robotics

  • Authors:

  • Gianluca Baldassarre;Stefano Nolfi

  • Affiliations:

  • Laboratory of Autonomous Robotics and Artificial Life, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (LARAL-ISTC-CNR), Via San Martino della Battaglia 44, 0 ...;Laboratory of Autonomous Robotics and Artificial Life, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (LARAL-ISTC-CNR), Via San Martino della Battaglia 44, 0 ...

  • Venue:
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Year:
  • 2009

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

This paper analyses the strengths and weaknesses of self-organising approaches, such as evolutionary robotics, and direct design approaches, such as behaviour-based controllers, for the production of autonomous robots' controllers, and shows how the two approaches can be usefully combined. In particular, the paper proposes a method for encoding evolved neural-network based behaviours into motor schema-based controllers and then shows how these controllers can be modified and combined to produce robots capable of solving new tasks. The method has been validated in the context of a collective robotics scenario in which a group of physically assembled simulated autonomous robots are requested to produce different forms of coordinated behaviours (e.g., coordinated motion, walled-arena exiting, and light pursuing).