The sensitivity of HyperNEAT to different geometric representations of a problem

HyperNEAT, a generative encoding for evolving artificial neural networks (ANNs), has the unique and powerful ability to exploit the geometry of a problem (e.g., symmetries) by encoding ANNs as a function of a problem's geometry. This paper provides the first extensive analysis of the sensitivity of HyperNEAT to different geometric representations of a problem. Understanding how geometric representations affect the quality of evolved solutions should improve future designs of such representations. HyperNEAT has been shown to produce coordinated gaits for a simulated quadruped robot with a specific two-dimensional geometric representation. Here, the same problem domain is tested, but with different geometric representations of the problem. Overall, experiments show that the quality and kind of solutions produced by HyperNEAT can be substantially affected by the geometric representation. HyperNEAT outperforms a direct encoding control even with randomized geometric representations, ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: GECCO
• Authors: Jeff Clune, Charles Ofria, Robert T. Pennock
• Keywords: GECCO 2009, Geometric Representation, Optimization, Randomized Geometric Representations, Two-dimensional Geometric Representation