On the Coupling Between Agent Internal and Agent/ Environmental Dynamics: Development of Spatial Representations in Evolving Autonomous Robots

In this paper we describe how a population of evolving robots can autonomously develop forms of spatial representation which allow them to self-localize and to discriminate different locations of their environment by integrating sensory-motor information over time. Evolving robots also display a remarkable ability to generalize their skill in new environmental conditions never experienced before. The analysis of the obtained results indicates that evolved robots come up with simple and robust solutions that exploit quasiperiodic limit cycle dynamics emerging from the coupling between the robot/environmental dynamics and the robots’ internal dynamics. More specifically, the variation of robots’ internal states are governed by transient dynamical processes originating from the fact that robots’ internal states tend to slowly approximate fixed attractors points corresponding to different type of sensory states which last for limited time duration and alternate while the robot moves in the environment. Corresponding author: Stefano Nolfi, [email protected], voice: ++39-06-44595233, fax: ++39-0644595243