Discovering Several Robot Behaviors through Speciation

Abstract. This contribution studies speciation from the standpoint of evolutionary robotics (ER). A common approach to ER is to design a robot’s control system using neuro-evolution during training. An extension to this methodology is presented here, where speciation is incorporated to the evolution process in order to obtain a varied set of solutions for a robotics problem using a single algorithmic run. Although speciation is common in evolutionary computation, it has been less explored in behavior-based robotics. When employed, speciation usually relies on a distance measure that allows different individuals to be compared. The distance measure is normally computed in objective or phenotypic space. However, the speciation process presented here is intended to produce several distinct robot behaviors; hence, speciation is sought in behavioral space. Thence, individual neurocontrollers are described using behavior signatures, which represent the traversed path of the robot within th...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: EVOW
• Authors: Leonardo Trujillo, Gustavo Olague, Evelyne Lutton, Francisco Fernández de Vega
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Contribution Studies Speciation, Distance Measure, EVOW 2008, Speciation