II-EN: Evolution Park - An Evolutionary Robotics Habitat for the Study of Crawling, Swimming and Flying Creatures

进化公园为将进化计算应用于自主机器人系统的开发和控制提供了一个试验台。混合种群被创造出来，包括一些机器人和一些自然系统，以促进生物互惠主义的一种形式，在这种形式下，生物学、工程学和计算机科学以协同和互利的方式相互交流。3D打印机能够实现与控制系统同时进化的物理身体（形态）。所制备的体与电活性聚合物材料耦合，以产生能够在没有马达的情况下运动的人造生物体。特别仪器化的水生环境允许机器鱼被用作刺激物，在实验者操纵的条件下引起活鱼的行为反应。配备大型显示器的高性能图形工作站集合便于对模拟机器人的进化行为进行细粒度交互式分析，以及对水下摄像机捕获的视频数据进行分析。该基础设施为进化机器人技术提供了引人注目的新研究方向，并完全建立在pi先前在群体通信和合作行为，并行处理，无线网络，自主计算，分布式算法，高保证软件，自然生物体中的复杂行为，传感器和执行器，机器鱼，生物启发机器人和群体，以及物种形成和通信进化方面的工作之上。这些进步有利于科学和工程、公共安全和国防方面的许多应用。进化公园支持一些创新的教育和推广活动。这些努力为实践实验提供了一个框架，这些实验被整合到大学课程、教师培训研讨会、夏令营和K-12学生的课后项目中。

The Evolution Park provides a testbed for applying evolutionary computation to the development and control of autonomous robotic systems. Mixed populations are created, including some robots and some natural systems to facilitate a form of biomutualism where biology, engineering and computer science inform one another in synergistic and mutually beneficial ways. The 3D printer enables the realization of physical bodies (morphologies) that evolve concurrently with their control systems. The fabricated bodies are coupled with electroactive polymer materials to produce artificial organisms capable of locomotion without motors. Specially instrumented aquatic environments allow robotic fish to be used as stimuli to elicit behavioral responses in living fish under conditions manipulated by the experimenter. A collection of high-performance graphics workstations with large monitors facilitate fine-grained, interactive analysis of evolved behaviors in simulated robots, as well as analysis of video data captured by underwater cameras.This infrastructure enables compelling new research directions in evolutionary robotics and squarely builds on previous work by the PIs on group communication and cooperative behavior, parallel processing, wireless networking, autonomic computing, distributed algorithms, high-assurance software, complex behavior in natural organisms, sensors and actuators, robotic fish, bio-inspired robots and swarms, as well as speciation and the evolution of communication. These advances benefit many applications in science and engineering, public safety, and national defense. The Evolution Park supports several innovative educational and outreach activities. Such endeavors provide a framework for hands-on experiments that are integrated into university courses, teacher training workshops, summer camps and after-school programs for K-12 students.