Evolving embodied intelligence in robotic ecosystems - School of Computing Seminar Series

Start date and time

Tuesday 20 March 2018

Location

15:00, Core44, Room C44, Merchiston Campus

Professor A.E.Eiben of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam will deliver a talk on evolving embodied intelligence in robotic ecosystems.

Evolutionary robotics (ER) is the art of employing evolution to develop the brains, the bodies, or both for autonomous robots. In this talk I explain the benefits of the Evolution of Things for engineering as well as for fundamental research. I argue that constructing systems of self-reproducing machines will lead to a new exciting mix of evolutionary computing, robotics, and artificial life with new challenges and opportunities. I will outline the concept of EvoSphere, a robotic ecosystem that evolves in real space and real time and review on-going activities following up the “Robot Baby Project”, our first proof-of-concept implementation. I will discuss the perspectives of this technology for studies into evolution, the emergence of intelligence, and the interplay between the body and the mind. Finally, I will give a peek preview of an upcoming multimillion evolutionary robotics research project carried out by a consortium of the Napier University, the University of the West of England, and the University of York.

Recommended reading:
A.E. Eiben, N. Bredeche, M. Hoogendoorn, J. Stradner, J. Timmis, A.M. Tyrrell and A. Winfield, The Triangle of Life: Evolving Robots in Real-time and Real-space, Proc of ECAL 2013, MIT Press, 2013, pp. 1056-1063.
A.E. Eiben and J. Smith, From evolutionary computation to the evolution of things, Nature, 521:476-482, doi:10.1038/nature14544, 2015
M.J. Jelisavcic, M. De Carlo, E. Hupkes, P. Eustratiadis, J. Orlowski, E. Haasdijk, J. Auerbach, and A.E. Eiben, Real-World Evolution of Robot Morphologies: A Proof of Concept, Artificial Life. 23(2):206-235, 2017.