Trading control intelligence for physical intelligence

Abstract

Traditional evolved virtual creatures [1] are actuated using unevolved, uniform, invisible drives at joints between rigid segments. In contrast, this paper shows how such conventional actuators can be replaced by evolvable muscle drives that are a part of the creature's physical structure. Such a muscle-drive system replaces control intelligence with meaningful morphological complexity. For instance, the experiments in this paper show that control intelligence sufficient for locomotion or jumping can be moved almost entirely from the brain into the musculature of evolved virtual creatures.