Interacting Robots in an Artificial Evolutionary Ecosystem

In Evolutionary Robotics where both body and brain are malleable, it is common practice to evaluate individuals in isolated environments. With the objective of implementing a more naturally plausible system, we designed a single interactive ecosystem for robots to be evaluated in. In this ecosystem robots are physically present and can interact each other and we implemented decentralized rules for mate selection and reproduction. To study the effects of evaluating robots in an interactive ecosystem has on evolution, we compare the evolutionary process with a more traditional, oracle-based approach. In our analysis, we observe how the different approach has a substantial impact on the final behaviour and morphology of the robots, while maintaining decent fitness performance.

Automated summary

In the field of evolutionary robotics, it is common to evaluate individuals in isolated environments. However, we designed a single interactive ecosystem where robots physically interact with each other for evaluation. By comparing this approach with a traditional oracle-based method, we found that evaluating robots in an interactive ecosystem significantly impacts their final behavior and morphology while maintaining good fitness performance.