An Experiment in Morphological Development for Learning ANN Based Controllers

Morphological development is part of the way any human or animal learns. The learning processes starts with the morphology at birth and progresses through changing morphologies until adulthood is reached. Biologically, this seems to facilitate learning and make it more robust. However, when this approach is transferred to robotic systems, the results found in the literature are inconsistent: morphological development does not provide a learning advantage in every case. In fact, it can lead to poorer results than when learning with a fixed morphology. In this paper we analyze some of the issues involved by means of a simple, but very informative experiment in quadruped walking. From the results obtained an initial series of insights on when and under what conditions to apply morphological development for learning are presented.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2003.0581

Guiding the Exploration of the Solution Space in Walking Robots Through Growth-Based Morphological Development

In human beings, the joint development of the body and cognitive system has been shown to facilitate the acquisition of new skills and abilities. In the literature, these natural principles have been applied to robotics with mixed results and different authors have suggested several hypotheses to explain them. One of the most popular hypotheses states that morphological development improves learning by increasing exploration of the solution space, avoiding stagnation in local optima. In this article, we are going to study the influence of growth-based morphological development and its nuances as a tool to improve the exploration of the solution space. We will perform a series of experiments over two different robot morphologies which learn to walk. Furthermore, we will compare these results to another optimization strategy that has been shown to be useful to favor exploration in learning algorithms: the application of noise during learning. Finally, to check if the increased exploration hypothesis holds, we visualize the genotypic space during learning considering the different optimization strategies by using the Search Trajectory Network representation. The results indicate that noise and growth increase exploration, but only growth guides the search towards good solutions

Engineering Morphological Development in a Robotic Bipedal Walking Problem: An Empirical Study

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract]: In living beings, the natural development of the body has been shown to facilitate learning. The application of these natural developmental principles in robotics have been considered in different robotic morphologies and scenarios, leading to mixed results. Development was found to be beneficial for learning in some instances, but also irrelevant or detrimental in others. This mix of results and scenarios has allowed researchers to extract some notions about the conditions that must be fulfilled or set to apply morphological development successfully. Notions that we have organized to set a series of design conditions to successfully apply morphological development. Thus, in this article, we are going to focus on the study of one of them that has been frequently addressed by researchers in their studies in very general terms. It can be described as the need to achieve a suitable synergy among the different components involved in the development and learning process: morphological development strategy, controller, task, and learning algorithm. In particular, we have concentrated on empirically determining the influence of five developmental strategies, implemented in different ways, applied at different speeds and deployed in different orders and combinations, over the problem of a NAO robot controlled by an artificial neural network obtained through a neuroevolutionary algorithm learning a bipedal walking task. The results obtained permit providing a more detailed description of what a suitable synergy implies and how it can be utilized to design more successful morphological developmental processes to improve robot learning.Xunta de Galicia ; EDC431C-2021/39Research supported by the European Commission Horizon program PILLAR-Robots project, grant 101070381, the Xunta de Galicia and the European Regional Development Funds under grant EDC431C-2021/39 and the Spanish Science and Education Ministry through grant PID2021-126220OB-100. We wish to acknowledge the support received from the Centro de Investigación de Galicia ‘‘CITIC”, funded by Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund-Galicia 2014-2020 Program), by grant ED431G 2019/01 and the Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia (CESGA)Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/0

Sustainability and interoperability: An economic study on BIM implementation by a small Civil Engineering firm

[EN] Sustainability and interoperability are two closely related concepts. By analyzing the three fundamental facets of sustainability-economic, ecological and ethical/social-it is easier to address their connection with the concept of interoperability. This paper focuses on the economic aspect, in the field of civil engineering. In this area, due to the local nature of many of the software tools used, interoperability problems are frequent, with few studies addressing the economic impact of this, especially in small engineering firms. The main contribution of this paper is a design methodology for linear works based on the federation of building information modelling (BIM) models created with different software tools, conceived to break the interoperability issues between these applications. As an example, this methodology is applied to a mountain road widening project. A detailed economic analysis of the application of this methodology by an engineering Spanish firm reveals the important cost reductions that the integration of the software tools provides versus the prior practices.The authors wish to acknowledge support from ISTRAM, CivileStudio and the engineering firm for the information provided.Aranda Domingo, JÁ.; Martin-Dorta, N.; Naya Sanchis, F.; Conesa-Pastor, J.; Contero, M. (2020). Sustainability and interoperability: An economic study on BIM implementation by a small Civil Engineering firm. Sustainability. 12(22):1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229581S1161222Grilo, A., & Jardim-Goncalves, R. (2010). Value proposition on interoperability of BIM and collaborative working environments. Automation in Construction, 19(5), 522-530. doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2009.11.003Bynum, P., Issa, R. R. A., & Olbina, S. (2013). Building Information Modeling in Support of Sustainable Design and Construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 139(1), 24-34. doi:10.1061/(asce)co.1943-7862.0000560BuildingSMART Internationalhttps://www.buildingsmart.org/Modelos digitales del terreno: Introducción y aplicaciones a las ciencias ambientales. Oviedo Univ. Oviedo 1994, 118http://www.etsimo.uniovi.es/~feliBaltsavias, E. P. (1999). A comparison between photogrammetry and laser scanning. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 54(2-3), 83-94. doi:10.1016/s0924-2716(99)00014-3Hirpa, D., Hare, W., Lucet, Y., Pushak, Y., & Tesfamariam, S. (2016). A bi-objective optimization framework for three-dimensional road alignment design. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 65, 61-78. doi:10.1016/j.trc.2016.01.016Yepes, V., Alcala, J., Perea, C., & González-Vidosa, F. (2008). A parametric study of optimum earth-retaining walls by simulated annealing. Engineering Structures, 30(3), 821-830. doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2007.05.023Nehate, G., & Rys, M. (2006). 3D Calculation of Stopping-Sight Distance from GPS Data. Journal of Transportation Engineering, 132(9), 691-698. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-947x(2006)132:9(691)Borga, M., Tonelli, F., & Selleroni, J. (2004). A physically based model of the effects of forest roads on slope stability. Water Resources Research, 40(12). doi:10.1029/2004wr003238Vanmarcke, E. H. (1977). Reliability of Earth Slopes. Journal of the Geotechnical Engineering Division, 103(11), 1247-1265. doi:10.1061/ajgeb6.0000518Istram Softwarehttps://www.istram.netCivileStudio Softwarehttps://www.civilestudio.comBates, P. ., & De Roo, A. P. . (2000). A simple raster-based model for flood inundation simulation. Journal of Hydrology, 236(1-2), 54-77. doi:10.1016/s0022-1694(00)00278-xBryde, D., Broquetas, M., & Volm, J. M. (2013). The project benefits of Building Information Modelling (BIM). International Journal of Project Management, 31(7), 971-980. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2012.12.001Ghaffarianhoseini, A., Tookey, J., Ghaffarianhoseini, A., Naismith, N., Azhar, S., Efimova, O., & Raahemifar, K. (2017). Building Information Modelling (BIM) uptake: Clear benefits, understanding its implementation, risks and challenges. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 75, 1046-1053. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.083Love, P. E. D., & Matthews, J. (2019). The ‘how’ of benefits management for digital technology: From engineering to asset management. Automation in Construction, 107, 102930. doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2019.102930Shin, M., Lee, H., & Kim, H. (2018). Benefit–Cost Analysis of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in a Railway Site. Sustainability, 10(11), 4303. doi:10.3390/su10114303Barlish, K., & Sullivan, K. (2012). How to measure the benefits of BIM — A case study approach. Automation in Construction, 24, 149-159. doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2012.02.008Ham, N., Moon, S., Kim, J.-H., & Kim, J.-J. (2018). Economic Analysis of Design Errors in BIM-Based High-Rise Construction Projects: Case Study of Haeundae L Project. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 144(6), 05018006. doi:10.1061/(asce)co.1943-7862.0001498Hong, Y., Hammad, A. W. A., Akbarnezhad, A., & Arashpour, M. (2020). A neural network approach to predicting the net costs associated with BIM adoption. Automation in Construction, 119, 103306. doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2020.10330

An uneven playing field: regulatory barriers to communities making a living from the timber from their forests–examples from Cambodia, Nepal and Vietnam

Community forestry (CF) is widely viewed as the solution to many of the challenges facing forest management and governance in the Asia-Pacific region. However, it is often felt that CF is not delivering on its potential. This paper focuses on one possible limitation: the role of regulations in curbing communities’ ability to make a living from their timber resources. The work covers Cambodia, Nepal and Vietnam, using policy analyses, national level experts’ workshops, and focus group discussions in two CF sites in each country. The results highlight the fact that there are numerous, often prohibitive, regulations in place. One challenge is the regulations’ complexity, often requiring a level of capacity far beyond the ability of community members and local government staff. The paper puts forward various recommendations including simplifying regulations and making them more outcome-based, and facilitating key stakeholders, including government and community based organizations, working together on the design and piloting of forest monitoring based on mutually agreed forest management outcomes. The recommendations reflect the belief that for CF to succeed, communities must be allowed to make a meaningful living from their forests, a result of which would be increased investment in sustainable forest management