Brains, Bodies, and Beyond: Competitive Co-Evolution of Robot Controllers, Morphologies and Environments

Abstract

This paper presents a series of simulation experiments that incrementally extend previous work on neural robot controllers in a predator-prey scenario, in particular the work of Floreano and Nolfi, and integrates it with ideas from work on the `co-evolution' of robot morphologies and control systems. The aim of these experiments has been to further systematically investigate the tradeoffs and interdependencies between morphological parameters and behavioral strategies through a series of predator-prey experiments in which increasingly many aspects are subject to self-organization through competitive co-evolution. Motivated by the fact that, despite the emphasis of the interdependence of brain, body and environment in much recent research, the environment has actually received relatively little attention, the last set of experiments lets robots/species actively adapt their environments to their own needs, rather than just adapting themselves to a given environment.