Environmental influences on evolvable robots

PLoS One. 2020 May 29;15(5):e0233848. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233848. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The field of Evolutionary Robotics addresses the challenge of automatically designing robotic systems. Furthermore, the field can also support biological investigations related to evolution. In this paper, we evolve (simulated) modular robots under diverse environmental conditions and analyze the influences that these conditions have on the evolved morphologies, controllers, and behavior. To this end, we introduce a set of morphological, controller, and behavioral descriptors that together span a multi-dimensional trait space. Using these descriptors, we demonstrate how changes in environmental conditions induce different levels of differentiation in this trait space. Our main goal is to gain deeper insights into the effect of the environment on a robotic evolutionary process.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Environment*
  • Phenotype
  • Robotics*
  • Seasons

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.