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Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks

The design of effective, robust and autonomous controllers for multi-agent and multi-robot systems is a long-standing problem in the fields of computational intelligence and robotics. Whilst nature-inspired problem-solving techniques such as reinforcement learning (RL) and evolutionary algorithms (E...

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Main Author: Didi, Sabre Z
Other Authors: Nitschke, Geoff Stuart
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Computer Science 2018
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access_status_str Open Access
author Didi, Sabre Z
author2 Nitschke, Geoff Stuart
author_browse Didi, Sabre Z
Nitschke, Geoff Stuart
author_facet Nitschke, Geoff Stuart
Didi, Sabre Z
author_sort Didi, Sabre Z
collection Thesis
description The design of effective, robust and autonomous controllers for multi-agent and multi-robot systems is a long-standing problem in the fields of computational intelligence and robotics. Whilst nature-inspired problem-solving techniques such as reinforcement learning (RL) and evolutionary algorithms (EA) are often used to adapt controllers for solving such tasks, the complexity of such tasks increases with the addition of more agents (or robots) in difficult environments. This is due to specific issues related to task complexity, such as the curse of dimensionality and bootstrapping problems. Despite an increasing attempt over the last decade to incorporate behavior (knowledge) transfer in machine learning so that relevant behavior acquired in previous learning experiences can be used to boost task performance in complex tasks, using evolutionary algorithms to facilitate behavior transfer (especially multi-agent behavior transfer) has received little attention. It remains unclear how behavior transfer addresses issues such as the bootstrapping problem in complex multi-agent tasks (for example, RoboCup soccer). This thesis seeks to investigate and establish the essential features constituting effective and efficient evolutionary search to augment behavior transfer for boosting the quality of evolved behaviors across increasingly complex tasks. Experimental results indicate a hybrid of objective-based search and behavioral diversity maintenance in evolutionary controller design coupled with behavior transfer yields evolved behaviors of significantly high quality across increasingly complex multi-agent tasks. The evolutionary controller design method thus addresses the bootstrapping task for the given range of multi-agent tasks, whilst comparative controller design methods yield scant performance results.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:31:41.113Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2018
publishDateRange 2018
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publisher Department of Computer Science
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/27910 Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks Didi, Sabre Z Nitschke, Geoff Stuart Computer Science The design of effective, robust and autonomous controllers for multi-agent and multi-robot systems is a long-standing problem in the fields of computational intelligence and robotics. Whilst nature-inspired problem-solving techniques such as reinforcement learning (RL) and evolutionary algorithms (EA) are often used to adapt controllers for solving such tasks, the complexity of such tasks increases with the addition of more agents (or robots) in difficult environments. This is due to specific issues related to task complexity, such as the curse of dimensionality and bootstrapping problems. Despite an increasing attempt over the last decade to incorporate behavior (knowledge) transfer in machine learning so that relevant behavior acquired in previous learning experiences can be used to boost task performance in complex tasks, using evolutionary algorithms to facilitate behavior transfer (especially multi-agent behavior transfer) has received little attention. It remains unclear how behavior transfer addresses issues such as the bootstrapping problem in complex multi-agent tasks (for example, RoboCup soccer). This thesis seeks to investigate and establish the essential features constituting effective and efficient evolutionary search to augment behavior transfer for boosting the quality of evolved behaviors across increasingly complex tasks. Experimental results indicate a hybrid of objective-based search and behavioral diversity maintenance in evolutionary controller design coupled with behavior transfer yields evolved behaviors of significantly high quality across increasingly complex multi-agent tasks. The evolutionary controller design method thus addresses the bootstrapping task for the given range of multi-agent tasks, whilst comparative controller design methods yield scant performance results. 2018-05-03T12:36:15Z 2018-05-03T12:36:15Z 2018 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27910 eng application/pdf Department of Computer Science Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Computer Science
Didi, Sabre Z
Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks
title_full Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks
title_fullStr Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks
title_full_unstemmed Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks
title_short Neuro-evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks
title_sort neuro evolution behavior transfer for collective behavior tasks
topic Computer Science
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27910
work_keys_str_mv AT didisabrez neuroevolutionbehaviortransferforcollectivebehaviortasks