Environmental regulation using Plasticoding for the evolution of robots

TL;DR

This paper introduces Plasticoding, a novel robot encoding method that allows robot morphology, control, and behavior to adapt dynamically to environmental conditions during its lifetime, enhancing adaptability.

Contribution

It presents a new encoding approach enabling robots to change their traits based on environmental stimuli, a significant advancement over traditional static robot designs.

Findings

Plasticoding improves task performance and adaptation.

Evolved robots exhibit diverse morphologies and behaviors.

Dynamic development occurs at any point in a robot's lifetime.

Abstract

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. This means that the morphology, controller, and behavior of a robot can change according to the environment. Importantly, this process of development can happen at any moment of a robot lifetime, according to its experienced environmental stimuli. We provide an empirical proof-of-concept, and the analysis of the experimental results shows that Plasticoding improves adaptation (task performance) while leading to different evolved morphologies, controllers, and behaviour.