Environmental Regulation Using Plasticoding for the Evolution of Robots

Evolutionary robot systems are usually affected by the properties of the environment indirectly through selection. In this paper, we present and investigate a system where the environment also has a direct effect—through regulation. We propose a novel robot encoding method where a genotype encodes multiple possible phenotypes, and the incarnation of a robot depends on the environmental conditions taking place in a determined moment of its life. We provide an empirical proof-of-concept, and the analysis of the experimental results shows that environmental regulation improves adaptation (task performance) while leading to different evolved morphologies, controllers, and behavior.

[Karine Miras, Eliseo Ferrante, A. E. Eiben]

Environmental regulation using Plasticoding for the evolution of robots