Grammatical evolution of a robot controller

Abstract

An autonomous mobile robot requires an onboard controller that allows it to perform its tasks for long periods in isolation. One possibility is for the robot to adapt to its environment using some form of artificial intelligence. Evolutionary techniques such as genetic programming (GP) offer the possibility of automatically programming the controller based on the robot's experience of the world. Grammatical evolution (GE) is a recent evolutionary algorithm that has been successfully applied to various problems, particularly those for which GP has been successful. We present a method for applying GE to autonomous robot control and evaluate it in simulation for the Khepera robot.