Tasks 1-2-3 : how can they be integrated together ?

Wenguo

Genome: represent an organism
Evert's approach: evolution let's choose.

Abstract class Shape.

C++

• cell.h
• have the same name

Communicate with people developing the controller first.

What kind of modules they need.

How the shape;

Once they have the shape.

From two genomes of shape, build the organism.

-------

From 1st simulator, use Robot3D.

• Robot3D: Yao yes; Wenguo no;

Reached final simulation.

For us, we have to have sensors;

Robot3D;

If we have to use a single one;

• Wenguo's Stage.

Group 1.

Genotype to Phenotype

mapping one to many; many to one ?
Not very important; but useful information.

Init. and Crossover

Wenguo: implemented: code available. simple examples.

Yao-yao: involve the shape from scratch. Local topology.

The genome is a function, disseminated on every cell and deciding whom to recruit.
Describe coding.

summary: 1 explicit; 3 implicit representations.

Group 2. Jurgen.

• criteria to compare: agreed in skype meeting.
• I, T, H shapes
• base class which are evolved.
• share one symbol seed file (html); make comparison easy.

Florian: integrated the controller.
Graz: Online evolved AHHS. We have to simulate in 3D;
Can be used also for group 1.

Group 3: Internal reward.

• Evert was sick. will do it.

skype meeting: Evert agreed to generate the log files with numeric labels;
and then INRIA can return weights.

Group 4: Libor.

Simulation: 3 x slower than real-time, with 10 robots and sensors off.
If you increase the number of cells; becomes 10 times slower.
Speed of simulation does not depend much on structure: only on number of cells.

1 hour: 10 minutes of real-time.
How many evaluations ?
Depends how fast an egg finds another cell.

Distinguish time in real-world / cycles in simulator

Vojta is preparing the manual, with Anne. Something early next week.

What about the installation ?

Having a place where to find tricks and recipes ?

• In e-mails to Libor;
• But hard to catch up if you enter the game now
• having a wiki ? On Symbrion, pages are outdated.
• use "longebran" (here I did not follow).

Agreed: put the info somewhere in a centralized place.


Agreed:

• Team 1 and 2, cooperate.
• Every leader prepares a report.

A meeting to reach a decision in December ?
Jurgen: hard to get the time from teaching.
After mid December: 19-23.
Guzs: I could attend iff in Amsterdam.
What about early January.
VU: closed in the week between Christmas and New Year.

Subtask2: Organism control parameters

On robot3D: should be running, dec. 15th.
Evert: find on light simulator first.
Nicolas: until Nov. 30: light simulator, then Robot3D.
Jurgen: too many pbs to debug 30 nov; 15 dec.
Florian: But how can we compare if we don't have same simulator.
Jurgen: Postpone decision until 15 dec.
Yaoyao: need help about simulator
Vojta/Libor: need help from Lutz. One day meeting ? Skype call? Write documentation on simulator.
Lutz: you can send me questions.
Guzs: start soon with small tutorial. Then another one.
Skype tutorial on next week;

Subtask3: Evert & Michele & Christopher

Adapt an implementation of the QI.
I plan to do that before the week-end.
Static version of QI.
Discussion after the skype.

Subtask 1: Morphogenesis

Wenguo: improved the representation: for next week, create mutation, crossover.
send them to Christopher.
Yao: done some experiments in its simulator; working with Ronny to integrate his findings.
Michele: Before sunday evening, paragraph summarizing progress.

Subtask 4: Simulator

Distribute threads on computers ?
Lutz: possible; not done yet.
Physics is the bottleneck.
Jurgen: two kernels; we don't use the threads. Is there anything we can read so that all kernels are used by default ?
Lutz: done in new code.
Nicolas: compiled on Ubuntu 11 ?
Ask Anne. support 10.10 and 11.04.
Florian: I run 11.04. happily.
What the first tutorial should say:

• how do we get; compile; run in the system; find good parameters.
• some examples which do not match.

Jean-Marc Montanier: packages... but not 11.10.
Anne: packages are compiled every night.
Deadline for benchmark: Nov. 15th.
Scenario with snakes and simple creatures.
Guzs: but we have two more weeks for preliminary work. On Nov. 30th, all go to Robot3D.
Libor: ok for next week the benchmark; but the bugs, after.
Berend: we need a bug tracking system. Anne.
Would it be easier to have all the same version ? 11.04 if possible. Would simplify the debugging.
But do we have a machine where to run the compiler now ?
Agreed, bugs supported on 11.04 only.

Next

Each leader writes a paragraph on the progress before Sunday night.

How to synchronize the expe in each subtask :

so that people do comparable experiments: private skype.

On subtask 3 (internal reward): private skype right w

General question

Simulator: a paper of it ? Might be.
How to debug it, yes; or the simulator.
Already a paper, Symbricator 3D.

The software might be a legacy to the community. Unique properties.

Group Morphogenesis

Task

Decide for a representation of shapes

Partners

1. Wenguo (Bristol)
   1. Explicit representation, grammar-like
   2. Tested in simulation: organism construction completed
   3. Issue: evolvability

1. Ronny (Graz)
   1. Virtual embryogeny, AHHS
   2. Each module of the organism exchanges signals (hormone levels ?) and surface module can recruit additional free cells
   3. Tested in simulation () and on robots (how many)
   4. Issue: size of the representation

1. Michele (Paris)
   1. Virtual embryogeny, cellular automaton
   2. Each module of the organism emits signals and surface modules can recruit additional free cells
   3. Tested in simulation () PhD Alexandre Devert
   4. Issue: convergence toward controllable-size organisms

1. Christopher (Tubingen)
   1. Helps Wenguo to devise structured variation operators (mutation, crossover)

1. Yao-yao (Gent)
   1. Suggestions to Ronny.

Criteria of evolvability

A viable shape

is an organism which includes 4-10 modules and does not recruit anyone else.
tbcompleted.

Random initialization

Using random descriptions in the representation space

• Number of trials needed to yield XX viable and diverse shapes
• Time needed

Controllability

Feasibility of describing a prescribed shape in the representation space

Efficiency of operators

Using (crossover, mutation) on viable parent shapes,

• percentage of trials needed to yield XX viable offspring
• Time needed

Ratio: Time to reach a viable shape from scratch /
Time to reach a viable shape from two viable parent shapes.

Experimental setting

Overview

1. Initialization (from fixed shapes or from random)
2. Loop:
   1. Variation operators
   2. Fitness = number of new viable shapes offspring
3. End loop

Later

• Fitness will be enriched with other criteria (walking).