- author = "Pablo Funes and Jordan Pollack",
- title = "Computer Evolution of Buildable Objects",
- booktitle = "Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life",
- year = "1997",
- editor = "P. Husbands and I. Harvey",
- pages = "358--367",
- publisher = "MIT Press",
- keywords = "genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolutionary design, evolutionary robotics, computer simulation",
-
URL = "
http://www.demo.cs.brandeis.edu/papers/other/cs-97-191.html",
-
URL = "
http://www.demo.cs.brandeis.edu/papers/ecal97.pdf",
-
URL = "
http://www.demo.cs.brandeis.edu/papers/ecal97.ps.gz",
- size = "10 pages",
-
abstract = "Creating artificial life forms through evolutionary
robotics faces a {"}chicken and egg{"} problem:
learning to control a complex body is dominated by
inductive biases specific to its sensors and effectors,
while building a body which is controllable is
conditioned on the pre-existence of a brain.
The idea of co-evolution of bodies and brains is becoming popular, but little work has been done in evolution of physical structure because of the lack of a general framework for doing it. Evolution of creatures in simulation has been constrained by the {"}reality gap{"} which implies that resultant objects are usually not buildable.
The work we present takes a step in the problem of body evolution by applying evolutionary techniques to the design of structures assembled out of parts. Evolution takes place in a simulator we designed, which computes forces and stresses and predicts failure for 2-dimensional Lego structures. The final printout of our program is a schematic assembly, which can then be built physically. We demonstrate its functionality in several different evolved entities.",
- notes = "An earlier revision of this paper is available in html: Brandeis University Computer Science Technical Report CS-97-191",
