Evolving insect locomotion using cooperative genetic programming

Abstract

In this work, genetic programming systems are viewed as cooperative processes: individuals in the population cooperate to evolve a global solution. There are two basic forms of cooperation for distributed problem solving: task-sharing and result-sharing. We introduce two models that enable cooperation in genetic programming systems. The first model is based on task-sharing and the second one is based on result-sharing. We examine the effects of both forms of cooperation on the performance of genetic programming systems solving the insect locomotion problem. This article demostrates that cooperative genetic programming can be used to evolve several commonly observed gaits in insects. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.