Designing robots by hand can be costly and time consuming, especially if the robots have to be created with novel materials, or be robust to internal or external changes. In order to create robots automatically, without the need for human intervention, it is necessary to optimise both the behaviour and the body design of the robot. However, when co-optimising the morphology and controller of a locomoting agent the morphology tends to converge prematurely, reaching a local optimum. Approaches such as explicit protection of morphological innovation have been used to reduce this problem, but it might also be possible to increase exploration of morphologies using a more indirect approach. We explore how changing the environment, where the agent locomotes, affects the convergence of morphologies. The agents' morphologies and controllers are co-optimised, while the environments the agents locomote in are evolved open-endedly with the Paired Open-Ended Trailblazer (POET). We compare the diversity, fitness and robustness of agents evolving in environments generated by POET to agents evolved in handcrafted curricula of environments. Our agents each contain of a population of individuals being evolved with a genetic algorithm. This population is called the agent-population. We show that agent-populations evolving in open-endedly evolving environments exhibit larger morphological diversity than agent-populations evolving in hand crafted curricula of environments. POET proved capable of creating a curriculum of environments which encouraged both diversity and quality in the populations. This suggests that POET may be capable of reducing premature convergence in co-optimisation of morphology and controllers.
翻译:手工设计机器人可能成本高,耗费时间,特别是如果机器人必须用新材料创建,或者对内部或外部变化具有活力。为了自动创建机器人,不需要人类干预,有必要优化机器人的行为和体型设计。然而,当通过手动设计机器人的形态和操控器共同优化机械机器人的行为和体型设计时,形态学往往会过早地形成,并达到局部最佳程度。已经使用了明确保护形态学创新等方法来减少这一问题,但也有可能采用更间接的方法加强对形态学的探索。为了自动创建机器人,不需要人为干预,因此有必要使机器人的行为和体型设计设计设计优化。当形态学的形态学和操控器的形态和操控器的形态发生同步优化时,形态学往往与成熟的不成熟的不成熟的变异体(POLET)一起演变。我们比较了由POET所生成的形态学变异种的形态学的形态学系的多样性、体格和坚固性能化的形态学系的形态学系的形态学系的形态学系,这在手动的形态环境的形态学环境中,我们的形态演化的形态化的形态学系则显示进化的形态的形态学环境的形态学系的形态学系的形态学中的形态和形态学系的形态学系的形态学系的形态学系的形态学系的形态学的形态学系的形态。