Scalable co-evolution of soft robot properties and gaits

Abstract

One of the outstanding challenges in soft robotics is the chicken-and-egg problem of body/brain design: generation of locomotion is predicated on the existence of a locomotioncapable body, and generation of body plans is predicated upon the existence of effective locomotion.This problem is compounded by the high degree of coupling between the material properties of a soft body (such as stiffness or damping coefficients) and the effectiveness of a gait.In this work we describe a means by which the material properties of a simulated soft body co-evolve alongside locomotive gaits.Improvements in simulation time, with no loss of overall fitness, are obtained by incrementally increasing mesh density over the course of evolution.