Computer Science – Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Scientific paper
2011-12-21
Computer Science
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
18 pages, 15 figures. Supplementary Materials available at http://tinyurl.com/autonomous-foragers-supplement
Scientific paper
Artificially evolving foraging behavior in simulated legged animals has proved to be a notoriously difficult task. Here, we co-evolve the morphology and controller for virtual organisms in a three-dimensional physically realistic environment to produce goal-directed legged locomotion. We show that following and reaching multiple food sources can evolve de novo, by evaluating each organism on multiple food sources placed on a basic pattern that is gradually randomized across generations. We devised a strategy of evolutionary "staging", where the best organism from a set of evolutionary experiments using a particular fitness function is used to seed a new set, with a fitness function that is progressively altered to better challenge organisms as evolution improves them. We find that an organism's efficiency at reaching the first food source does not predict its ability at finding subsequent ones because foraging efficiency crucially depends on the position of the last food source reached, an effect illustrated by "foraging maps" that capture the organism's controller state, body position, and orientation. Our best evolved foragers are able to reach multiple food sources over 90% of the time on average, a behavior that is key to any biologically realistic simulation where a self-sustaining population has to survive by collecting food sources in three-dimensional, physical environments.
Adami Christoph
Chaumont Nicolas
No associations
LandOfFree
Evolution of sustained foraging in 3D environments with physics does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Evolution of sustained foraging in 3D environments with physics, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Evolution of sustained foraging in 3D environments with physics will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-193651