Experiments in learning distributed control for a hexapod robot

This paper reports on experiments involving a hexapod robot. Motivated by neurobiological evidence that control in real hexapod insects is distributed leg-wise, we investigated two approaches to learning distributed controllers: genetic algorithms and reinforcement learning. In the case of reinforcement learning, a new learning algorithm was developed to encourage cooperation between legs. Results from both approaches are presented and compared. c © 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.