Evolving Specialisation in a Population of Heterogeneous Robots: the Challenge of Bootstrapping and Maintaining Genotypic Polymorphism

In this article, we are intested in the evolution of specialisation among a single population of heterogeneous robotic agents in a cooperative foraging task. In particular, we want to compare (1) the emergence and (2) fixation of genotypic polymorphism under two different selection methods: elitist and fitness- proportionate. We show that, while the emergence of specialists is easy under an elitist selection, this method cannot maintain heterogeneous behaviours throughout the whole simulation. In comparison a fitness-proportionate algorithm proves to be inefficient in evolving any cooperative strategy but ensures the conservation of heterogeneity when it is present in the population. We then reveal through additional experiments two key factors for the evolution of heterogenous behaviours in our task: (1) protection of genotypic diversity and (2) efficient selection of partners. We finally demonstrate this assertion and, while our main problem remains unsolved, we provide directions on how it could be suc...