Co-evolution of morphology and controller for biped humanoid robot

Abstract

In this paper, we present a method for co-evolving structures and control circuits of bi-ped humanoid robots. Currently, bi-ped walking humanoid robots are designed manually on trial-and-error basis. Although certain control theory exists, such as zero moment point (ZMP) compensation, these theories does not constrain design space of humanoid robot morphology or detailed control. Thus, engineers has to design control program for apriori designed morphology, neither of them shown to be optimal within a large design space. We propose evolutionary approaches that enables: (1) automated design of control program for a given humanoid morphology, and (2) co-evolution of morphology and control. An evolved controller has been applied to a humanoid PINO, and attained more stable walking than human designed controller. Co-evolution was achieved in a precision dynamics simulator, and discovered unexpected optimal solutions. This indicate that a complex design task of bi-ped humanoid can be performed automatically using evolution-based approach, thus varieties of humanoid robots can be design in speedy manner. This is a major importance to the emerging robotics industries. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.