Life on Silicon

Background

We are developing artificial life forms on electronic platforms, focusing on planning, strategizing, and adapting to environments. Our approach integrates reinforcement learning, sensory processing, and modular design to create entities capable of invention, learning from experience, and expanding into complex systems. By combining intelligence with practical applications, we aim to build systems that not only explore the nature of life and cognition but also contribute meaningfully to real-world challenges. Our work is a continuous evolution—developing entities that grow, adapt, and redefine what it means to be autonomous.

Accomplishments

• Development and deployment of a point goal navigation system utilizing GPS and compass technologies.
• Establishment of a predictive localization system based on sensory inputs, demonstrating the efficacy of sensory data for spatial positioning.
• Design and prototyping of multiple robotic platforms, including two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles, quadcopters, and quadrupedal units.
• Construction of a two-wheeled robot equipped with an arm capable of object manipulation (pick-and-place tasks) using conventional control methodologies.
• Comprehensive analysis of sensor data characteristics, elucidating the types of sensory inputs necessary to construct navigable and topological maps reflective of real-world environments.
• Implementation of the A* algorithm for optimized path planning in robotic navigation.

Next Steps

• Complete point goal navigation using camera.
• Create a flexible abstract controller that can accomplish tasks (like fetch) using robots of various kinds.
• Create a system that allows the evolution of body forms.