Importance of Parameter Settings on the Benefits of Robot-to-Robot Learning in Evolutionary Robotics

Robot-to-robot learning, a specific case of social learning in robotics, enables multiple robots to share learned skills while completing a task. The literature offers various statements of its benefits. Robots using this type of social learning can reach a higher performance, an increased learning speed, or both, compared to robots using individual learning only. No general explanation has been advanced for the difference in observations, which make the results highly dependent on the particular system and parameter setting. In this paper, we perform a detailed analysis into the effects of robot-to-robot learning. As a result, we show that this type of social learning can reduce the sensitivity of the learning process to the choice of parameters in two ways. First, robot-to-robot learning can reduce the number of bad performing individuals in the population. Second, robot-to-robot learning can increase the chance of having a successful run, where success is defined as the presence of a high performing individual. Additionally, we show that robot-to-robot learning results in an increased learning speed for almost all parameter settings. Our results indicate that robot-to-robot learning is a powerful mechanism which leads to benefits in both performance and learning speed

Embodied Evolution in Collective Robotics: A Review

This paper provides an overview of evolutionary robotics techniques applied to on-line distributed evolution for robot collectives -- namely, embodied evolution. It provides a definition of embodied evolution as well as a thorough description of the underlying concepts and mechanisms. The paper also presents a comprehensive summary of research published in the field since its inception (1999-2017), providing various perspectives to identify the major trends. In particular, we identify a shift from considering embodied evolution as a parallel search method within small robot collectives (fewer than 10 robots) to embodied evolution as an on-line distributed learning method for designing collective behaviours in swarm-like collectives. The paper concludes with a discussion of applications and open questions, providing a milestone for past and an inspiration for future research.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Tutorials at PPSN 2016

PPSN 2016 hosts a total number of 16 tutorials covering a broad range of current research in evolutionary computation. The tutorials range from introductory to advanced and specialized but can all be attended without prior requirements. All PPSN attendees are cordially invited to take this opportunity to learn about ongoing research activities in our field

Better Together

Eiben, A.E. [Promotor]Haasdijk, E.W. [Copromotor

Quantifying selection pressure

Selection is an essential component of any evolutionary system and analysing this fundamental force in evolution can provide relevant insights into the evolutionary development of a population. The 1990s and early 2000s saw a substantial number of publications that investigated selection pressure through methods such as takeover time and Markov chain analysis. Over the last decade, however, interest in the analysis of selection in evolutionary computing has waned. The established methods for analysis of selection pressure provide little insight when selection is based on more than comparison-of-fitness values. This can, for instance, be the case in coevolutionary systems, when measures unrelated to fitness affect the selection process (e.g., niching) or in systems that lack a crisply defined objective function. This article proposes two metrics that holistically consider the statistics of the evolutionary process to quantify selection pressure in evolutionary systems and so can be applied where traditionally used methods fall short. Themetrics are based on a statistical analysis of the relation between reproductive success and a quantifiable trait: one method builds on an estimate of the probability that this relation is random; the other uses a correlation measure. These metrics provide convenient tools to analyse selection pressure and so allow researchers to better understand this crucial component of evolutionary systems. Both metrics are straightforward to implement and can be used in post-hoc analyses as well as during the evolutionary process, for example, to inform parameter control mechanisms. Anumber of case studies and a critical analysis show that the proposed metrics provide relevant and reliable measures of selection pressure