Co-evolving Complex Robot Behavior

Reports on evolutionary robotics systems have so far been on evolving controllers that make simple robots do simple tasks in simple environments. In this paper we try to stress the evolutionary robotics approach by evolving a controller for a more complex task, namely Khepera robot soccer, and evaluate evolved controller performance against hand-coded controllers. We present a system that uses competitive coevolution to develop robot controllers for the task. The system is described, and performance of the system is documented. Co-evolution is tested against single-population evolution, and it is concluded that co-evolution has the ability to produce more robust individuals with respect to opponent strategies.