CRI: IAD - A Testbed for Evolving Adaptive and Cooperative Behavior Among Autonomous Systems

计算技术与物理世界之间日益增长的交互要求系统能够适应不断变化的条件、补偿硬件和软件故障、抵御攻击并优化性能，所有这些都需要最少的人为干预。在小型设备的集合中，稳健的操作尤其重要，例如微型机器人和传感器，这些设备需要在恶劣的操作条件下执行复杂的分布式任务。数字进化提供了一种产生健壮的计算行为并针对目标硬件和环境进行定制的方法。在数字进化中，一群自我复制的计算机程序在动态环境中受到随机突变，导致自然选择进化，该基础设施项目将构建一个试验台，以支持复杂分布式行为的数字进化及其在异质计算系统上的评估。试验台将包括陆地移动机器人、定制的机器鱼和固定传感器，以及用于在线软件进化的机架安装的并行处理器。试验台将支持研究项目，解决集群移动设备的能效移动控制；自适应通信协议；以及自适应和自我修复软件。为了最大限度地发挥其影响，试验台将与现有设施整合，为实验研究创造一个丰富的计算和通信结构。

The increasing interaction between computing technology and the physical world requires that systems be able to adapt to changing conditions, compensate for hardware and software failures, fend off attacks, and optimize performance, all with minimal human intervention. Robust operation is especially important among collections of small devices, such as micro-robots and sensors that need to perform complex distributed tasks despite adverse operating conditions. Digital evolution offers a means to produce robust computational behaviors and customize them for target hardware and environments. In digital evolution, populations of self-replicating computer programs are subject to random mutations in dynamic environments, leading to evolution by natural selection.This infrastructure project will construct a testbed to support digital evolution of complex distributed behaviors and their evaluation on heterogeneous computing systems. The testbed will include terrestrial mobile robots, custom-built robotic fish, and stationary sensors, as well as a rack-mounted parallel processor for on-line software evolution. The testbed will support research projects addressing energy-efficient mobility control for swarms of mobile devices; adaptive communication protocols; and self-adaptive and self-healing software. To maximize its impact, the testbed will be integrated with existing facilities, creating a rich computing and communication fabric for experimental research.