Evolutionary robotics
Topic outline
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The course offers an introduction to evolutionary computation, its applications to neural computation, robot control, body-brain co-design, and evolutionary biology. Students are also exposed to open research topics that resort to evolutionary computation, such as self-repairing robots, self-reproducing robots, tensegrity robot control, and biohybrid robots. The course consists of ex-cathedra lectures, lab exercises with Phython, and a team project on co-evolution of robotic brains and bodies.
The course builds on foundational chapters from Floreano, D. and Mattiussi, C. (2008) Bio-inspired Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. In addition, several research articles describing recent research results are provided on Moodle.
Credits: 3
Thursday, 09:15-12:00
Final written exam: 24 June 2022, 15:00-16:00, room CE1106. Please arrive at 14:45 for distribution of the test. Bring your student ID. Books, notes, personal devices are not allowed. Students with special arrangements from SAC, please email Dario.Floreano@epfl.ch for confirmation before the exam.
Grade: 50% written exam, 50% project presentation
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09:15-12:00
Lecture
- Course introduction: objectives, contents, logistics
- Introduction to Evolutionary Computation
- Types of evolutionary algorithms
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09:15 - 10:00
Lecture: Evolutionary Strategies
10:15 - 12:00
Exercise: Evolutionary Strategies in Python
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09:15 - 12:00
Lecture:
- Foundations of Neural Networks
- Unsupervised Learning
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09:15 - 12:00
Lecture:
- Supervised learning (see slides of previous week)
- Reinforcement learning
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09:15 - 10:00
Lecture:
- Evolution of neuro-controllers, part 1
10:15 - 12:00
Robogen:
- Introduction to the software
- Brain evolution for predefined robotic body
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09:15 - 11:00
Lecture
- Evolution of neural controllers, part 2
- Evolution and learning
11:15 - 12:00
Robogen: Brain evolution for predefined robotic bodies
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09:15 - 11:00
Lecture:
- Morphology representations with rewriting systems
- Evolution of neural network morphologies
- Co-evolution of body and brain morphologies
11:15 - 12:00
Robogen: brain evolution for pre-defined robotic bodies
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09:15 - 12:00
Robogen: Introduction to evolution of robotic bodies
Formation of student groups: discussion of project ideas
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09:15 - 12:00
Robogen: Co-evolution of Body-Brain Robots
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09.15 - 11.00
Lecture:
- Competitive coevolution
- Cooperative coevolution
11:15 - 12:00Robogen: Introduction to Robogen hardware, handout of kits, access to Discovery Learning Labs (3D printing, soldering, experimentation)
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09:15 - 10:00
Lecture: Tensegrity robotics
10:15 - 12:00
Robogen: project coaching
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09:15 - 10:00
Lecture: Towards self-reproducing robots
10:15 - 12:00
Robogen: Project coaching
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Ascension day
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09:15 - 12:00
Robogen presentations: Each team gives 8-minute presentation with demo + 2 minutes Q&A
Each group must hand the best robot (txt file), their final presentations in pdf and ppt format, and all evolution files (scenario, configuration files, arenas, etc) by 31 May 23:59.