Evolution of distributed neural controllers for voxel-based soft robots
Eric Medvet, Alberto Bartoli, Andrea De Lorenzo, Giulio Fidel
Abstract
Voxel-based soft robots (VSRs) are aggregations of elastic, cubic blocks that have sparkled the interest of Robotics and Artificial Life researchers. VSRs can move by varying the volume of individual blocks, according to control signals dictated by a controller, possibly based on inputs coming from sensors embedded in the blocks. Neural networks (NNs) have been used as centralized processing units for those sensing controllers, with weights optimized using evolutionary computation. This structuring breaks the intrinsic modularity of VSRs: decomposing a VSR into modules to be assembled in a different way is very hard.
Topics & Concepts
Modularity (biology)Computer scienceRobotComputationController (irrigation)Evolutionary computationArtificial intelligenceArtificial neural networkVoxelEvolutionary roboticsRoboticsStructuringAlgorithmAgronomyEconomicsFinanceBiologyGeneticsModular Robots and Swarm IntelligenceMicro and Nano RoboticsSoft Robotics and Applications