Evolution of mapmaking: learning, planning, and memory using genetic programming

An essential component of an intelligent agent is the ability to observe, encode, and use information about its environment. Traditional approaches to genetic programming have focused on evolving functional or reactive programs with only a minimal use of state. This paper presents an approach for investigating the evolution of learning, planning, and memory using genetic programming. The approach uses a multi-phasic fitness environment that enforces the use of memory and allows fairly straightforward comprehension of the evolved representations. An illustrative problem of 'gold' collection is used to demonstrate the usefulness of the approach. The results indicate that the approach can evolve programs that store simple representations of their environments and use these representations to produce simple plans.<<ETX>>