Evolving Humanoids: Using Artificial Evolution as an Aid in the Design of Humanoid Robots

Abstract

Following an initial introduction to the twin topics of evolutionary robotics and humanoid robotics, we discussed their recent convergence in the new field of evolutionary humanoid robotics. After presenting a survey of recent work in this field by other researchers, we introduced our own work in the area of evolving bipedal locomotion in a simulated highDOF humanoid. After a brief discussion on the important topic of benchmarking future mobile robot performances we introduced our current hardware platform, and the implementation of locomotion, evolved in simulation using the Webots simulator, on the Bioloid platform for an 18-DOF humanoid robot. Advantages of our approach include its adaptability and the ability to generate life-like behaviours without the provision of detailed domain knowledge. While certain questions remain to be addressed, including the potential scalability of this approach to the generation of highly complex behaviours, the field of evolutionary humanoid robotics should prove a useful and powerful tool for future designers of humanoid robots.