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In article <C0ICnz.o6@world.std.com> lains@world.std.com (Layne L Ainsworth) writes:

   Has anyone tried to do this: 

   "Herds" of cheap (really cheap), reprogrammable robots, each loaded
   with one set of the test "chromosome" population of a Genetic
   Algorithm system. They could be evaluated to optimize indivdual
   performance, or "hive" well-being.  Each "generation" would be the
   same robots, with a new generation of "chromosomes" on board.

   Pointers to papers or discussion of the feasibility of such a project
   would both be welcome. I would think this could be a job for the
   much-heralded and -scorned MiniBoard. Wire up all the connections to
   various sensors/actuators and let the herd discover uses for them.

   My dream, of course, is a bunch of robots that (who?) could
   continuously clean my house. :-)

   Thanks.

   -Layne

I don't know of anyone who has done anything like this with real
robots, but I do know of instances of using genetic models to
program robotic behaviour under simulation.

John Koza's "Genetic Programming: On the programming of computers by
means of natural selection" from MIT press (1992) has examples of this
in simulation.

"Genetic Programming - the Movie" Koza & Rice MIT Press 1992 has
visualisations of the learned robotic behaviour.

(Am I beginning to sound like a broken record?)

As well as these I know that Craig Reynolds <cwr@white.sww.symbolics.com>
has been looking at the genetic evolution of flocking/swarm
behaviour.  Koza's book also covers emergent behaviour of ants
(actually it covers 81 different problem domains, so the GP
question is likely to be a reasonable answer to a wide set
of queries similar to your's.  The movie covers >20 diffeent
problem domains).

There's a student at Stanford, whose name escapes me who's
used GP to program Beer's six legged robot.  If you want
I can doubtless dig up a pointer.

Craig Reynolds had a paper at the Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour
conference in Hawaii last month, but I haven't seen it yet.


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