Professor Alan Winfield's Outputs (123)

Towards an ethical robot: Internal models, consequences and ethical action selection (2014)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

If robots are to be trusted, especially when interacting with humans, then they will need to be more than just safe. This paper explores the potential of robots capable of modelling and therefore predicting the consequences of both their own actions,... Read More about Towards an ethical robot: Internal models, consequences and ethical action selection.

The distributed co-evolution of an on-board simulator and controller for swarm robot behaviours (2014)
Journal Article

We investigate the reality gap, specifically the environmental correspondence of an on-board simulator. We describe a novel distributed co-evolutionary approach to improve the transference of controllers that co-evolve with an on-board simulator. A n... Read More about The distributed co-evolution of an on-board simulator and controller for swarm robot behaviours.

Mapping the hinterland: Data issues in open science (2014)
Journal Article

© The Author(s) 2014. Open science is a practice in which the scientific process is shared completely and in real time. It offers the potential to support information flow, collaboration and dialogue among professional and non-professional participan... Read More about Mapping the hinterland: Data issues in open science.

The triangle of life: Evolving robots in real-time and real-space (2013)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Evolutionary robotics is heading towards fully embodied evolution in real-time and real-space. In this paper we introduce the Triangle of Life, a generic conceptual framework for such systems in which robots can actually reproduce. This framework can... Read More about The triangle of life: Evolving robots in real-time and real-space.

Embodied imitation-enhanced reinforcement learning in multi-agent systems (2013)
Journal Article

Imitation is an example of social learning in which an individual observes and copies another's actions. This paper presents a new method for using imitation as a way of enhancing the learning speed of individual agents that employ a well-known reinf... Read More about Embodied imitation-enhanced reinforcement learning in multi-agent systems.

Collective foraging: Cleaning, energy harvesting and trophallaxis (2013)
Book Chapter

Individual, social and evolutionary adaptation in collective systems (2013)
Book Chapter

Distributed autonomous morphogenesis in a self-assembling robotic system (2012)
Book Chapter

We present distributed morphogenesis control strategies in a swarm of robots able to autonomously assemble into 3D symbiotic organisms to perform specific tasks. Each robot in such a system can work autonomously, while teams of robots can self-assemb... Read More about Distributed autonomous morphogenesis in a self-assembling robotic system.

On fault tolerance and scalability of swarm robotic systems (2012)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper challenges the common assumption that swarm robotic systems are robust and scalable by default. We present an analysis based on both reliability modelling and experimental trials of a case study swarm performing team work, in which failure... Read More about On fault tolerance and scalability of swarm robotic systems.

Self-assembly in heterogeneous modular robots (2012)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper describes the distributed self-assembly of a multi-robot ‘organism’ from a swarm of autonomous heterogeneous modular mobile robots. A distributed self-assembly strategy based on a symbol sequence representation is proposed. Constructed fro... Read More about Self-assembly in heterogeneous modular robots.

Building safer robots: Safety driven control (2012)
Journal Article

In recent years there has been a concerted effort to address many of the safety issues associated with physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). However, a number of challenges remain. For personal robots, and those intended to operate in unstructured... Read More about Building safer robots: Safety driven control.

Towards temporal verification of swarm robotic systems (2012)
Journal Article

A robot swarm is a collection of simple robots designed to work together to carry out some task. Such swarms rely on the simplicity of the individual robots; the fault tolerance inherent in having a large population of identical robots; and the self-... Read More about Towards temporal verification of swarm robotic systems.

Open Science: A New "Trust Technology"? (2012)
Journal Article

The emerging practice of open science, which makes the entire process of a scientific investigation available, could extend membership of the research community to new, public audiences, who do not have access to science's long-established trust mech... Read More about Open Science: A New "Trust Technology"?.

It feels like the right thing to do: Ethical perspectives of open science (2012)
Book Chapter

Environment-driven distributed evolutionary adaptation in a population of autonomous robotic agents (2012)
Journal Article

This article is concerned with a fixed-size population of autonomous agents facing unknown, possibly changing, environments. The motivation is to design an embodied evolutionary algorithm that can cope with the implicit fitness function hidden in the... Read More about Environment-driven distributed evolutionary adaptation in a population of autonomous robotic agents.

Emergent swarm morphology control of wireless networked mobile robots (2012)
Book Chapter

We describe a new class of decentralised control algorithms that link local wireless connectivity to low-level robot motion control in order to maintain both swarm aggregation and connectivity, which we term “coherence”, in unbounded space. We invest... Read More about Emergent swarm morphology control of wireless networked mobile robots.

On embodied memetic evolution and the emergence of behavioural traditions in Robots (2011)
Journal Article

This paper describes ideas and initial experiments in embodied imitation using e-puck robots, developed as part of a project whose aim is to demonstrate the emergence of artificial culture in collective robot systems. Imitated behaviours (memes) will... Read More about On embodied memetic evolution and the emergence of behavioural traditions in Robots.

The distributed co-evolution of an embodied simulator and controller for swarm robot behaviours (2011)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Embodied fitness assessment of robotic controllers is slow but grounded, while assessment in a simulated environment is fast but can run foul of the ‘reality gap’. We present a distributed co-evolutionary method to adapt the environmental model of an... Read More about The distributed co-evolution of an embodied simulator and controller for swarm robot behaviours.

Interactive robots in experimental biology (2011)
Journal Article

Interactive robots have the potential to revolutionise the study of social behaviour because they provide several methodological advances. In interactions with live animals, the behaviour of robots can be standardised, morphology and behaviour can be... Read More about Interactive robots in experimental biology.

Towards imitation-enhanced reinforcement learning in multi-agent systems (2011)
Presentation / Conference Contribution