AUTHOR=Miras Karine , Ferrante Eliseo , Eiben A. E. TITLE=Environmental Regulation Using Plasticoding for the Evolution of Robots JOURNAL=Frontiers in Robotics and AI VOLUME=7 YEAR=2020 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/robotics-and-ai/articles/10.3389/frobt.2020.00107 DOI=10.3389/frobt.2020.00107 ISSN=2296-9144 ABSTRACT=

Evolutionary robot systems are usually affected by the properties of the environment indirectly through selection. In this paper, we present and investigate a system where the environment also has a direct effect—through regulation. We propose a novel robot encoding method where a genotype encodes multiple possible phenotypes, and the incarnation of a robot depends on the environmental conditions taking place in a determined moment of its life. This means that the morphology, controller, and behavior of a robot can change according to the environment. Importantly, this process of development can happen at any moment of a robot's lifetime, according to its experienced environmental stimuli. We provide an empirical proof-of-concept, and the analysis of the experimental results shows that environmental regulation improves adaptation (task performance) while leading to different evolved morphologies, controllers, and behavior.