Artificial Life Models in Hardware (eBook)

Contents 8
List of Contributors 13
The History and Future of Stiquito: A Hexapod Insectoid Robot 17
1.1 Introduction 17
1.2 The Origins of Stiquito 17
1.3 Engineering a Commercial Stiquito 19
1.4 How the Stiquito Insect Walks 20
1.5 Microprocessor Control and Stiquito Controlled 23
1.6 The Extended Analog Computer as a Biologically Based Stiquito Controller 25
1.7 The Sessile Stiquito Colony 29
1.8 Educational Uses of Stiquito 33
1.9 The Future of Stiquito 34
References 35
Learning Legged Locomotion 37
2.1 Introduction 37
2.2 Learning from Delayed Reward 38
2.3 Learning from Implicit Reward 42
2.4 Conclusion 47
References 48
Salamandra Robotica: A Biologically Inspired Amphibious Robot that Swims and Walks 50
3.1 Introduction 50
3.2 Robot's Design 59
3.3 Hardware 62
3.4 Experiments 69
3.5 Future Work 75
3.6 Conclusion 76
References 78
Multilocomotion Robot: Novel Concept, Mechanism, and Control of Bio- inspired Robot 80
4.1 Introduction 80
4.2 Multilocomotion Robot 81
4.3 Gorilla Robot 86
4.4 Evaluation of the Gorilla Robot on Slopes as Quadruped Hardware 90
4.5 PreviousWorks Using the Gorilla Robot 97
4.6 Summary 99
References 100
Self-regulatory Hardware: Evolutionary Design for Mechanical Passivity on a Pseudo Passive Dynamic Walker 102
5.1 Introduction 102
5.2 Background 103
5.3 Evolutionary Design System of Legged Robots 104
5.4 Evolutionary Design of Biped Robots 107
5.5 Conclusion 116
References 117
Perception for Action in Roving Robots: A Dynamical System Approach 118
6.1 Introduction 118
6.2 Control Architecture 120
6.3 Hardware Devices 128
6.4 Hardware Implementation 132
6.5 Experiments 137
6.6 Summary and Remarks 144
6.7 Conclusion 145
References 145
Nature-inspired Single-electron Computers 148
7.1 Introduction 148
7.2 A Single-electron Reaction-diffusion Device for Computation of a Voronoi Diagram 149
7.3 Neuronal Synchrony Detection on Single-electron Neural Networks 155
7.4 Stochastic Resonance Among Single-Electron Neurons on Schottky Wrap- Gate Devices 165
7.5 Single-electron Circuits Performing Dendritic Pattern Formation with Nature- inspired Cellular Automata 166
7.6 Summary and Future Works 170
References 172
Tribolon: Water-Based Self-Assembly Robots 175
8.1 Introduction 175
8.2 Self-Assembly Robots 176
8.3 Tribolon: Water-Based Self-Assembly Robots 178
8.4 Speculations About Life 195
References 196
Artificial Symbiosis in EcoBots 199
9.1 Introduction 199
9.2 Materials and Methods 204
9.3 Results 212
9.4 Discussion 219
9.5 Conclusions 223
References 224
The Phi-Bot: A Robot Controlled by a Slime Mould 226
10.1 Introduction 226
10.2 Physarum Polycephalum as Information Processor 227
10.3 Cellular Robot Control 228
10.4 Computation, Control, and Coordination in the F-Bot:Material for a Theory of Bounded Computability 236
10.5 Conclusion 243
References 244
Reaction-Diffusion Controllers for Robots 246
11.1 Introduction 246
11.2 BZ Medium 249
11.3 Robot Taxis 249
11.4 Open-Loop Parallel Actuators 255
11.5 Closed-Loop Control of Robotic Hand 264
11.6 Physarum Robots 268
11.7 Conclusion 273
References 276
Index 278