| Abstract |
While there is ample research on swarm-robotics and self-reconfigurable robot systems as
separate subjects, little research is done to the transition from a robot swarm into an organism. Furthermore research to the transition from a swarm to a robot organism is mostly
based on designed and programmed procedures, as opposed to an evolved controller.
Our research is focused on the transition of a robot swarm into a multi-robot organism, using
an on-line on-board evolutionary algorithm. The approach is one where the environment,
rather than a fitness function, determines the benefit of aggregating into a multi-robot
organism.
We show that in these environments even a small advantage for an organism leads to con-
trollers which favour organisms. Furthermore, we show that differences in the environment
lead to differences in the longevity and size of the created organisms.
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