Recent changes to PassiveWalkerExperiment

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 10:22:09 -0000

--- v10
+++ v11
@@ -8,12 +8,13 @@

 Body Evolution and Morphological Computing
 =======
-The term “Morphological Computing” refers to the fact that the computations/elaborations that enables a situated robot to display a certain desired behaviour should not be performed necessarily by the robot’s control system only but can be performed also by the robot’s body. One paradigmatic demonstration of this is constituted by passive walking machines, i.e. robots that can display a bipedal walking behaviour on an inclined plane without any actuators and any control system. Whether these machines manage to display an appropriate walking behaviour or not depends on the physical characteristics of their body (e.g. the length and the mass of each body segment).

-The term “Body Evolution” or “Body/Brain Evolution” refers instead to evolutionary robotics experiments in which not only the characteristics of the robots’ controllers but also the characteristics of the robots’ body are evolved. 
+The term “Morphological Computing” refers to the fact that the computations/elaborations that allow a situated robot to display a certain desired behaviour should not be performed necessarily by the robot’s control system only, but can be performed also by the robot’s body. One paradigmatic demonstration of this is constituted by passive walking machines, i.e. robots that can display a bipedal walking behaviour on an inclined plane without any actuator and any control system. Whether these machines manage to display an appropriate walking behaviour or not depends on the physical characteristics of their body (e.g. the length and the mass of each body segment).
+
+The term “Body Evolution” or “Body/Brain Evolution” refers instead to evolutionary robotics experiments in which not only the characteristics of the robots’ controllers but also the characteristics of the robots’ body are evolved.

 The **PassiveWalkerExperiment** plugin provides a way to study the power of morphological computation through an evolutionary approach that is used to discover the characteristics of the robots’ body that, in interaction with the environment, enable the robot to display the desired walking behaviour. 

 [[img src=PassiveWalkerExperiment.png width=60%]]

-In this experiment a biped robot constituted of only passive elements (rigid body segments, joints and springs) can evolve  an ability to walk on an inclined plane. For simplicity, the plugin implement a simplified biped with a body that does not extends over the lateral axis (the two legs are allowed to physically compenetrate) and consequently does not need to balance over that axis. The physical characteristics of the robot body are encoded in the robots’ genotype and evolved. Evolving individuals are evaluated on the basis of the distance walked during a fixed amount of time. The implementation of the body structure is included in the plugin code and constitutes a useful exemplification of how robots made of articulated body parts can be implemented in FARSA.
+In this experiment a biped robot constituted of only passive elements (rigid body segments, joints and springs) can evolve  an ability to walk on an inclined plane. For simplicity, the plugin implements a simplified biped with a body that does not extend over the lateral axis (the two legs are allowed to physically compenetrate) and consequently does not need to balance over that axis. The physical characteristics of the robot body are encoded in the robots’ genotype and evolved. Evolving individuals are evaluated on the basis of the distance walked during a fixed amount of time. The implementation of the body structure is included in the plugin code and constitutes a useful exemplification of how robots made of articulated body parts can be implemented in FARSA.

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:59:37 -0000

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 08:53:08 -0000

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 10:31:53 -0000

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:36:49 -0000

--- v6
+++ v7
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-[Prev: Sensory-Motor Coordination]([SensoryMotorCoordination]) |  | [Next: Minimal Cognitive Behaviours]([MinimalCognitiveBehaviour])
+[Prev: Sensory-Motor Coordination]([SensoryMotorCoordination]) | [Up: Home]([Home]) | [Next: Minimal Cognitive Behaviours]([MinimalCognitiveBehaviour])
  -------|--------|----------
         |        |

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:21:43 -0000

--- v5
+++ v6
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+[Prev: Sensory-Motor Coordination]([SensoryMotorCoordination]) |  | [Next: Minimal Cognitive Behaviours]([MinimalCognitiveBehaviour])
+ -------|--------|----------
+        |        |
+
+**Table of contents**
+
+[TOC]
+
 Body Evolution and Morphological Computing
 =======
 The term “Morphological Computing” refers to the fact that the computations/elaborations that enables a situated robot to display a certain desired behaviour should not be performed necessarily by the robot’s control system only but can be performed also by the robot’s body. One paradigmatic demonstration of this is constituted by passive walking machines, i.e. robots that can display a bipedal walking behaviour on an inclined plane without any actuators and any control system. Whether these machines manage to display an appropriate walking behaviour or not depends on the physical characteristics of their body (e.g. the length and the mass of each body segment).

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Stefano Nolfi

Stefano Nolfi — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 15:21:06 -0000

--- v4
+++ v5
@@ -1,8 +1,11 @@
-The Passive Walker Experiment
+Body Evolution and Morphological Computing
 =======
+The term “Morphological Computing” refers to the fact that the computations/elaborations that enables a situated robot to display a certain desired behaviour should not be performed necessarily by the robot’s control system only but can be performed also by the robot’s body. One paradigmatic demonstration of this is constituted by passive walking machines, i.e. robots that can display a bipedal walking behaviour on an inclined plane without any actuators and any control system. Whether these machines manage to display an appropriate walking behaviour or not depends on the physical characteristics of their body (e.g. the length and the mass of each body segment).

-The **PassiveWalkerExperiment** plugin implements a simplified passive walker using the Wordsim library. The experiment shows how complex behaviours such as human-like dynamic walk can be gretly simplified by proper morphologies, to the point where no controller is needed. The robot, in fact, is made up only of passive elements (rigid links, joints and springs) and is able to walk on an inclined catwalk.
+The term “Body Evolution” or “Body/Brain Evolution” refers instead to evolutionary robotics experiments in which not only the characteristics of the robots’ controllers but also the characteristics of the robots’ body are evolved. 
+
+The **PassiveWalkerExperiment** plugin provides a way to study the power of morphological computation through an evolutionary approach that is used to discover the characteristics of the robots’ body that, in interaction with the environment, enable the robot to display the desired walking behaviour. 

 [[img src=PassiveWalkerExperiment.png width=60%]]

-In the plugin a simple bipedal robot is implemented, with both legs laying on the same plane, meaning that legs compenetrate during the walk. While such structure is not easily replicable in real world experiments, it simplifies the simulation and makes the robot structure easier to implement. To be able to walk, some of the robot parameters need to be tuned. Such parameters include masses, their position and lengths and releative positions of body parts. The tuning of parameters is performed by a genetic algorithm, whose fitness function simply rewards robots proportionally to the distance travelled on the catwalk.
+In this experiment a biped robot constituted of only passive elements (rigid body segments, joints and springs) can evolve  an ability to walk on an inclined plane. For simplicity, the plugin implement a simplified biped with a body that does not extends over the lateral axis (the two legs are allowed to physically compenetrate) and consequently does not need to balance over that axis. The physical characteristics of the robot body are encoded in the robots’ genotype and evolved. Evolving individuals are evaluated on the basis of the distance walked during a fixed amount of time. The implementation of the body structure is included in the plugin code and constitutes a useful exemplification of how robots made of articulated body parts can be implemented in FARSA.

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 22:23:00 -0000

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 22:16:55 -0000

--- v2
+++ v3
@@ -3,6 +3,6 @@

 The **PassiveWalkerExperiment** plugin implements a simplified passive walker using the Wordsim library. The experiment shows how complex behaviours such as human-like dynamic walk can be gretly simplified by proper morphologies, to the point where no controller is needed. The robot, in fact, is made up only of passive elements (rigid links, joints and springs) and is able to walk on an inclined catwalk.

-[[img src=PassiveWalkerExperiment.jpg width=60%]]
+[[img src=PassiveWalkerExperiment.png width=60%]]

 In the plugin a simple bipedal robot is implemented, with both legs laying on the same plane, meaning that legs compenetrate during the walk. While such structure is not easily replicable in real world experiments, it simplifies the simulation and makes the robot structure easier to implement. To be able to walk, some of the robot parameters need to be tuned. Such parameters include masses, their position and lengths and releative positions of body parts. The tuning of parameters is performed by a genetic algorithm, whose fitness function simply rewards robots proportionally to the distance travelled on the catwalk.

PassiveWalkerExperiment modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 22:14:58 -0000