Generalization capabilities of co-evolution in learning robot behavior

In this article, a co-evolutive method is used to evolve neural controllers for general obstacle-avoidance of a Braitenberg vehicle. During a first evolutionary process, Evolution Strategies were applied to generate neural controllers; the generality of the obtained behaviors was quite poor. During a second evolutionary process, a new co-evolutive method, called Uniform Co-evolution, is introduced to co-evolve both the controllers and the environment. A comparison of both methods shows that the co-evolutive approach improves the generality of controllers. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.