Time to Play: Simulating Early-Life Animal Dynamics Enhances Robotics Locomotion Discovery

Description

Developmental changes in body morphology profoundly shape locomotion in animals, yet artificial agents and robots are typically trained under static physical parameters. Inspired by ontogenetic scaling of muscle power in biology, we propose Scaling Mechanical Output over Lifetime (SMOL), a novel curriculum that dynamically modulates robot actuator strength to mimic natural variations in power-to-weight ratio during growth and ageing. Integrating SMOL into the MAP-Elites quality-diversity framewo

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