A developmental genetics-inspired approach to robot control

The need to build modular, scalable, and complex technology capable of adaptation, self-assembly, and self-repair has fuelled renewed interest in using approaches inspired by developmental biology. To meet this need, a new field, called Computational Development (CD), has emerged. Its focus is on adapting processes and mechanisms from developmental biology so as to help us build scalable, complex technology. Due to the embryonic nature of the field, however, research investigating the potential of such approaches for different problem domains is crucial to its success. In this paper, the plausibility of applying a developmental biology-inspired approach to the demanding problem domain of reactive robot control is explored. Using developmental genetics as a source of inspiration, a model of genetic regulatory networks is used in conjunction with a spatially distributed evolutionary algorithm to evolve real-time robot controllers for tasks such as general purpose obstacle avoidance. ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: GECCO
• Authors: Sanjeev Kumar
• Keywords: Complex Technology, Developmental Biology, GECCO 2005, Problem Domain