Genetic Programming and Parametric Sensitivity: a Case Study In Dynamic Control of a Two Link Manipulator

Minimum time control of a two link manipulator is used to investigate the sensitivity of genetic programming solutions to parametric design changes. Two methods of reducing sensitivity are considered. An aggregate fitness method in which results from multiple fitness cases are combined into a single fitness measure, and a bimodal selection method in which male and female parents are selected on the basis of fitness’ derived from different parameter values. Results are preliminary. The genetically derived solutions perform poorly compared to numerical solutions. The poor performance may be due to an insufficiently large population. Population size was limited by simulation run time concerns.