Evolutionary Humanoid Robotics

Dr. Malachy Eaton is a lecturer and researcher in the Dept. of Computer Science and Information Systems of the University of Limerick, Ireland. His interests include evolutionary computing and humanoid robotics.

Introduction.- Evolutionary Algorithms and the Control of Systems.- Evolutionary Robotics (ER).- Humanoid Robots, Their Simulators, and the Reality Gap.- Evolutionary Humanoid Robotics (EHR).- The State of the Art in EHR.- Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking of Humanoid Robots.- Ethical, Philosophical and Moral Considerations.- Conclusions, and the Future.

"[The book] sheds light at the intersection of evolutionary search and robotics, with a special focus on humanoid or human-like robots. It is a skill to hit the right spot between introducing newcomers to a concept while also informing researchers already in the field. [The author] manages to do just that by delivering a nice flowing, quick to read book. ... I can recommend this book to starting graduate students in the fields of computer science and/or robotics, or researchers looking to get started with evolutionary robotics. ... The book's gaze is on humanoid robotics and Eaton does a good job at defining the terminology ... describing the various graduations of distinction between evolutionary robotics and evolutionary humanoid robotics, thus leading the reader to a more fundamental understanding of the levels of humanoid robots. ... a well-written, thoroughly researched introduction ... a wonderful guide for finding relevant references in the field. I highly recommend it for young researchers starting out in the field of EHR [and] people interested in the general idea of evolving robotic systems, both for humanoids and non-humanoid robots."   [Jürgen Leitner, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, 2015, DOI 10.1007/s10710-015-9256-2]