Intelligent Trial & Error (Limbo experiment)

ITE code for the experiments published in Cully et al. (2015), Nature.

Full reference: Cully, Antoine, Jeff Clune, Danesh Tarapore, and Jean-Baptiste Mouret. "Robots that can adapt like animals." Nature 521, no. 7553 (2015): 503-507.

• Author-generated [pdf]
• Nature version (paywall) [html / pdf]

Video (click on it to play):

Other parts of the experiments published in the paper:

• limbo: A lightweight framework for Bayesian and model-based optimisation of black-box functions
• Sferes2: A high-performance, multi-core, lightweight, generic C++98 framework for evolutionary computation.
• map_elites_hexapod: MAP-Elites code for the hexapod

Authors

• Original author : Antoine Cully
• Other contributions: Jean-Baptiste Mouret, Konstantinos Chatzilygeroudis

How to compile

Dependencies

• robdyn: Dynamic simulator
  • Get the code: git clone https://github.com/jbmouret/robdyn.git
  • Configure for compilation/installation: ./waf configure
  • Compile with ./waf
  • Install robdyn on your computer: sudo ./waf install
  • For more advanced options, look at robdyn's repo.
• limbo: A lightweight framework for Bayesian and model-based optimisation of black-box functions
  • Get the code: git clone https://github.com/jbmouret/limbo.git
  • For more advanced options, look at limbo's repo.
• ROS (optional):
  • If you want to run the experiment on the real robot, you need to have ROS installed. Please check the official instructions to download and install ROS.
• hexa_control (optional):
  • If you want to run the experiment on the real robot, you need to have the hexa_control ROS package to control the robot. See hexa_control's repo for instructions.

Compiling

• Make sure you have all the dependencies installed/downloaded.
• Go to your limbo root directory
• Configure for compilation: ./waf configure
• Compile limbo with: ./waf
• Create an experiment folder (if there's none) and cd to it: mkdir exp && cd exp
• Clone ITE: git clone git@github.com:resibots/ITE.git
• Go back to your limbo root dir
• Compile the ITE experiment: ./waf --exp ITE
  • You need to add --robot true if you want to run ITE on the real robot
  • You can add --disable-graphics true if you want to not build the graphic version (requires OSG)

How to execute an experiment

Nature version

./build/exp/ITE/hexa_bomean_variant path_to_archive [matern_kernel_l_value] [leg_indices]

• Parameters:
  • [] means that the parameter is optional
  • the order must be followed
  • hexa_bomean_variant - there are 2 variants: hexa_bomean_robot (this exists only if you have compiled with --robot true) and hexa_bomean_graphic
  • path_to_archive - path for the MAP Elites archive to use
    • There are some available archives in the archives folder
  • matern_kernel_l_value - l value for the matern kernel (optional - 0.4 is the default)
  • leg_indices - leg_indices should not be more than 5 in number and in [0-5] range - this parameter is useful only when simulating
  • Example: ./build/exp/ITE/hexa_bomean_graphic ./exp/ite/archives/archive.dat 0.5 1
    • This will run a simulated robot using the "./exp/ite/archives/archive.dat", setting the l value to 0.5 and removing leg 1 from the robot.

Generated MAP Elites archives are located in the archives directory.

Funding

This work has been funded by the ANR Creadapt project (ANR-12-JS03-0009) and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 637972 - ResiBots).

LICENSE

CeCILL