Evolving Gaits for Damage Control in a Hexapod Robot

Mailer, C and Nitschke, G (2021) Evolving Gaits for Damage Control in a Hexapod Robot, Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2021).

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Abstract

Autonomous robots are increasingly used in remote and hazardous environments, where damage to sensory-actuator systems cannot be easily repaired. Such robots must therefore have controllers that continue to function effectively given unexpected malfunctions and damage to robot morphology. This study applies the Intelligent Trial and Error (IT&E) algorithm to adapt hexapod robot control to various leg failures and demonstrates the IT&E map-size parameter as a critical parameter in influencing IT&E adaptive task performance. We evaluate robot adaptation for multiple leg failures on two different map-sizes in simulation and validate evolved controllers on a physical hexapod robot. Results demonstrate a trade-off between adapted gait speed and adaptation duration, dependent on adaptation task complexity (leg damage incurred), where map-size is crucial for generating behavioural diversity required for adaptation.

Item Type: Conference paper
Subjects: Computing methodologies > Machine learning
Date Deposited: 03 Dec 2021 11:17
Last Modified: 03 Dec 2021 11:17
URI: https://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/id/eprint/1490

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