SEAMS 2020
Mon 29 June - Fri 3 July 2020
co-located with ICSE 2020
Wed 1 Jul 2020 14:00 - 15:15 at SEAMS - Keynote 2 Chair(s): Elisabetta Di Nitto

This keynote discusses a radically unconventional approach to developing robots: using evolution. Artificial evolution has been successful in optimization and design in the field of Evolutionary Computing; applying it to developing robots implies huge challenges and great promises, [1], [2], [3]. The long-term vision foresees robots that reproduce and evolve in real-time and real space. Possible application scenarios can be divided into two categories depending on the extent of human involvement. First, the “breeding farm scenario”, where humans steer and accelerate evolution through influencing selection (and possibly also reproduction) until a good robot design emerges in the environment of the “breeding farm”. This design can then be validated, produced and employed on a large scale in the real application environment, e.g., cave systems, deep seas, rainforests. Second, the “other planet scenario”, where the robot population evolves and adapts autonomously to the unknown environment without the need for direct human oversight. In this case, evolution is not merely a design method that stops when the outcome is satisfactory, but a permanent force that continually improves and adapts the population to the given circumstances. While at the current level of technology this may sound more fiction than science, the quick development of 3D-printing and autonomous assembly can make this a feasible option in the near future. As of today, the overall system architecture has been designed [4], and the first proofs-of concept with automated robot (re)production have been published [5], [6]. To illustrate specific aspects I will reflect on an ongoing EPSRC project that is developing the first evolutionary robot system where robots evolve in a breeding farm scenario [7].

Wed 1 Jul

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14:00 - 15:15
Keynote 2SEAMS 2020 at SEAMS
Chair(s): Elisabetta Di Nitto Politecnico di Milano
14:00
75m
Keynote
Evolving Robot Software and HardwareKeynote
SEAMS 2020
A.E. Eiben Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
Media Attached