The force model: concept, behavior, interpretation

Most experiments in research on autonomous agents and mobile robots are performed either in simulation or on robots with static physical properties; evolvable hardware is hardly ever used. One of the very rare exceptions is the eyebot on which Lichtensteiger and Eggenberger (1999) have evolved simplified insect eyes. Even though substantially improved, the evolutionary models currently applied still lack both scalability and noise resistance. To tackle these problems, this paper proposes a biologically-inspired force model for this class of real-world applications. The simulation results clearly indicate that this model provides a significant improvement over existing limitations. Furthermore, this paper argues that the force model is of more general utility.