Indirectly Encoding Running And Jumping Sodarace Creatures For Artificial Life

Keywords

Ambulating creatures; Evolution; HyperNEAT; Morphologies; Novelty search; Sodarace

Abstract

This article presents a lightweight platform for evolving two-dimensional artificial creatures. The aim of providing such a platform is to reduce the barrier to entry for researchers interested in evolving creatures for artificial life experiments. In effect the novel platform, which is inspired by the Sodarace construction set, makes it easy to set up creative scenarios that test the abilities of Sodarace-like creatures made of masses and springs. In this way it allows the researcher to focus on evolutionary algorithms and dynamics. The new indirectly encoded Sodarace (IESoR) system introduced in this article extends the original Sodarace by enabling the evolution of significantly more complex and regular creature morphologies. These morphologies are themselves encoded by compositional pattern-producing networks (CPPNs), an indirect encoding previously shown effective at encoding regularities and symmetries in structure. The capability of this lightweight system to facilitate research in artificial life is then demonstrated through both walking and jumping domains, in which IESoR discovers a wide breadth of strategies through novelty search with local competition.

Publication Date

11-1-2015

Publication Title

Artificial Life

Volume

21

Issue

4

Number of Pages

432-444

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1162/ARTL_a_00185

Socpus ID

84947567763 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84947567763

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