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About

Lukas Lichtensteiger is a pioneer in the field of evolutionary robotics and embodied intelligence, with a particular focus on the co-evolution of sensor morphology and behavior. His groundbreaking work centers on the development of artificial compound eyes for robots, drawing inspiration from insect vision to solve fundamental tasks like object avoidance and time-to-contact estimation. Lichtensteiger designed and built a unique robot capable of autonomously modifying the angular positions of its 16 individual light sensors, allowing the system to evolve its own optimal sensor morphology for a given task—a radical departure from fixed, pre-specified sensor designs. His most influential paper, “Evolving the morphology of a compound eye on a robot” (2003), has garnered 75 citations and remains a seminal reference in adaptive hardware and morphological computation. By systematically exploring the interdependence between an agent’s physical structure and its environment, Lichtensteiger demonstrated that optimal sensor layouts can be automatically generated through evolution. His work has laid essential groundwork for future research in self-adaptive robotics and continues to inspire students and researchers interested in how morphology and control co-determine intelligent behavior.