Institute for Communication Technologies and Embedded Systems

Evolving Hardware Online Instinctive Behaviors in Resource-scarce Agent Swarms Exploring Hard-to-reach Environments

Authors:
Andraud, M. ,  Hallawa, A. ,  De Roose, J. ,  Cantatore, E. ,  Ascheid, G. ,  Verhelst, M.
Book Title:
Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion
Publisher:
ACM
Series:
GECCO '18
Address:
New York, NY, USA
Date:
Jul. 2018
ISBN:
978-1-45035-764-7
DOI:
10.1145/3205651.3208255
hsb:
RWTH-2018-226213
Language:
English
Abstract:
This work introduces a novel adaptation framework to energy-efficiently adapt small-sized circuits operating under scarce resources in dynamic environments, as autonomous swarm of sensory agents. This framework makes it possible to optimally configure the circuit based on three key mechanisms: (a) an off-line optimization phase relying on R2 indicator based Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization Algorithm (EMOA), (b) an on-line phase based on hardware instincts and (c) the possibility to include the environment in the optimization loop. Specifically, the evolutionary algorithm is able to simultaneously determine an optimal combination of static settings and dynamic instinct for the hardware, considering highly dynamic environments. The instinct is then run on-line with minimal on-chip resources so that the circuit efficiently react to environmental changes. This framework is demonstrated on an ultrasonic communication system between energy-scarce wireless nodes. The proposed approach is environment-adaptive and enables power savings up to 45% for the same performance on the considered case studies.
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