Understanding environmental influence in an open-ended evolutionary algorithm

Abstract

It is well known that in open-ended evolution, the nature of the environment plays in key role in directing evolution. However, in Evolutionary Robotics, it is often unclear exactly how parameterisation of a given environment might influence the emergence of particular behaviours. We consider environments in which the total amount of energy is parameterised by availability and value, and use surface plots to explore the relationship between those environment parameters and emergent behaviour using a variant of a well-known distributed evolutionary algorithm (mEDEA). Analysis of the resulting landscape show that it is crucial for a researcher to select appropriate parameterisations in order that the environment provides the right balance between facilitating survival and exerting sufficient pressure for new behaviours to emerge. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such an analysis has been undertaken.