Why Evolutionary Robotics Will Matter

While at present Evolutionary Robotics (ER) is generally not studied in mainstream robotics, the main idea in this article is that ER has the opportunity to gain relevance by taking seriously its natural inspiration. The chasm that separates the behavior of robots today from the robustness and fluidity of organisms in nature is most naturally addressed by an approach that indeed respects the process through which such organisms originated. Yet the challenge is to identify the elusive missing ingredient that would allow ER to realize its full potential. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg