M02 - Embodiment in Autonomous Agents

Question 1

What is embodiment?

Answer 1

• Indicate agents that posses a physical body
• The body plays a role as important as the role of the brain

Question 2

What is morphology?

Answer 2

• the body composed of parts made of different materials and arranged in a given morphology
• constraints the behavior of the robot

Question 3

What are the ways to approach intelligence?

Answer 3

• The classical approach
• The modern approach

Question 4

Explain the classical approach to intelligence.

Answer 4

The focus is on the brain and central processing

Question 5

Explain the modern approach.

Answer 5

The focus is on the interaction with the environment. Cognition is emergent from the system-environment interaction.

Question 6

What are the main reasons why a robot should be embodied?

Answer 6

• preferable to purely computational or mathematical model
• to understand/model how human affordances grounded with interaction among object, tool and action
• use a humanoid robot with hands to model the sensorimotor capability of humans
• if you modeling a behavior that resembles human behavior, it is better that the robot resembles the body parts of the human

Question 7

Do morphological properties constraint a robots behavior?

Answer 7

Yes. (e.g. morphology for flying not suited for swimming)

Question 8

How many bodies do we have?

Answer 8

• the social body
• the sensorimotor body
• the living body
• the lived body

Question 9

What is the social body?

Answer 9

As it appears to others

Question 10

What is the sensorimotor body?

Answer 10

Which interacts with the environment

Question 11

What is the living body?

Answer 11

Which has to self-regulate and self-maintain

Question 12

What is the lived body?

Answer 12

As it is experienced by an agent itself

Question 13

What is morphological computation?

Answer 13

The ability of the robot’s body to perform the function of the brain

Question 14

What are advantages of the morphological computation?

Answer 14

• robots can use morphological computation to perform regulations that be difficult to perform through the brain (e.g. very fast regulations)
• robots can produce “complex” behavior with “simple” brains

Question 15

What is body adaption?

Answer 15

The body of the robot can be adapted to enable the robot to perform a desired function.

Question 16

Give an example of body adaptation.

Answer 16

The evolutionary process produces robots with more adapted bodies capable to walk better

Question 17

What are the body parts of cubic cells?

Answer 17

• a bone cell made of rigid material
• a tissue cell made of soft material
• a muscle cell that periodically contracts and expands
• Sensorless (except for local expansion/contraction)
• Brainless: the ability to walk comes exclusively from their morphological characteristics

Question 18

What are Xenobots?

Answer 18

• passive and contractile cells evolved in simulation and then manufactured by using living (brainless) cells
• behavior similar to corresponding creatures in simulation
• capable to explore environment without human intervention

Question 19

What is the set-up to an experiment where the body and brain can co-evolve?

Answer 19

• fixed number of morphological & control parameters
• direct encoding method in which each morphological & control parameter is encoded in a corresponding element of the genotype
• indirect encoding method and genotypes with varying length

Question 20

What is the ideal approach to body and brain co-evolution?

Answer 20

• simple
  (set of elementary elements, analogous to amino acids)
• should have high expressive power
  (generation of wide spectrum phenotypes)
• should enable the generation of evolved solutions (generation of agent with genetic variations)

Question 21

The higher level of embodiment, the higher the chance that the robot will operate effectively. True or False.

Answer 21

True.

Question 22

The higher the embodiment, the higher the amount of computation performed by the body. True or False.

Answer 22

True.

Question 23

What is the classification of sensors?

Answer 23

sensor -> exteroceptive (active or passive) or proprioceptive

Question 24

What are the types of exteroceptive sensors?

Answer 24

• active
• passive

Question 25

Explain active exteroceptive sensors.

Answer 25

• emit energy to the environment and measure the reaction of the environment
• it affects the environment

Question 26

Give examples for active exteroceptive sensors.

Answer 26

-lidar, laser, sonars and most of distance sensors

Question 27

Explain passive exteroceptive sensors.

Answer 27

• passively receive and measure energy from the environment
• does not affect the environment

Question 28

Give an example of a passive sensor.

Answer 28

camera

Question 29

How does a depth sensory work?

Answer 29

• depth sensor provides image resolution
• the image data are the distance between the object and the depth sensor in millimeters

Question 30

How does a distance sensor work?

Answer 30

Transmits a wave and receives its reflection

Question 31

What are the implications of morphological computation?

Answer 31

• the functions played by the body and by the brain are not separated
• the role played by the brain cannot be explained without considering the role of the body and vice versa

Question 32

What will perform better: hand-designed morphology vs. brain/body co-evolving morphology?

Answer 32

Brain/body co-evolving morphology

Question 33

What is the definition of embodiment by S.Nolfi?

Answer 33

Embodiment indicates the extension to which the body of a robot is adapted to the other constituting elements: the brain of the robot, the environment and the task the robot should accomplish

Question 34

What does a RGB camera do?

Answer 34

Recognizes/Classifies objects

Question 35

For what do you use Ultrasound and Infrared sensors?

Answer 35

For avoiding obstacles during navigation by getting distance between robot and obstacles

Question 36

For what do you use tactile sensors?

Answer 36

For getting mechanical property of an object