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Maze navigation and memory with physical reservoir computers

conference contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 15:32 authored by Chris JohnsonChris Johnson, Andy PhilippidesAndy Philippides, Phil HusbandsPhil Husbands
The extent to which an organism’s morphology may shape its behaviour is increasingly studied, but still not well understood (McGeer, 1990; Pfeifer and Bongard, 2007; Nakajima et al., 2015; Caluwaerts et al., 2012; Zhao et al., 2013). Hauser et al. (2011, 2012) introduced mass-spring-damper (MSD) reservoir networks as morphologically computing abstracted bodies. As these networks are abstracted from biological bodies, the two will share some properties and capabilities, and studying the former may give us useful clues about the latter. We have previously applied small MSD network pairs to the production of reactive behaviour often referred to as ‘minimally cognitive’ (Johnson et al., 2014, 2015). Here we go on to use similar controllers to solve a target-seeking problem for a mobile agent in a maze, which necessitates memory, over a finite but extended period. If MSD networks with relatively few elements but still high dynamic complexity can solve navigation problems requiring this kind of short term memory, then we may speculate that simple organisms can also.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Late Breaking Proceedings of the European Conference on Artificial Life 2015

Publisher

MIT Press

Page range

19-22

Event name

European Conference on Artificial Life 2015

Event location

York, UK

Event type

conference

Event date

20-24 July 2015

Department affiliated with

  • Informatics Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Paul Andrews, Simon Hickinbotham, Joe Timmis, Tim Taylor, René Doursat, Susan Stepney, Leo Caves, Fiona Polack

Legacy Posted Date

2018-10-17

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-10-16

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