Comparative Reproduction Schemes for Evolving Gathering Collectives

This research investigates an evolutionary approach to engineering agent collectives that accomplish tasks cooperatively. In general, reproduction and selection form the two cornerstones of evolution and in this paper we study various reproduction schemes in an evolving population of agents. We classify reproduction schemes in temporal and spatial terms, that is, by distinguishing when and where agents reproduce. In terms of the temporal dimension, we tested schemes where agents reproduce only at the end of their lifetime or multiple times during their lifetime. In terms of the spatial dimension we distinguished locally restricted reproduction (agents reproduce only with agents in adjacent positions) and panmictic reproduction (when an agent can reproduce with any other in the environment). This classification leads to four different reproduction schemes, which we compare, via their overall impact upon collective performance. Results using two completely different types of evolvable co...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ECAL
• Authors: A. E. Eiben, Geoff Nitschke, Martijn C. Schut
• Keywords: Agent Collective, ECAL 2005, Reproduction Schemes, Various Reproduction Schemes