Grammatical Evolution (GE) is that area of genetic algorithms that evolves computer programs in high-level languages possessing a BNF grammar. In this work, we present GEF (“Grammatical Evolution for the Finch”), a system that employs grammatical evolution to create a Finch robot controller program in Java. The system uses both the traditional GE model as well as employing extensions and augmentations that push the boundaries of goal-oriented contexts in which robots typically act including a meta-level handler that fosters a level of self-awareness in the robot. To handle contingencies, the GEF system has been endowed with the ability to perform meta-level jumps. When confronted with unplanned events and dynamic changes in the environment, our robot will automatically transition to pursue another goal, changing fitness functions, and generate and invoke operating system level scripting to facilitate the change. The robot houses a raspberry pi controller that is capable of executing one (evolved) program while wirelessly receiving another over an asynchronous client. This work is part of an overall project that involves planning for contingencies. In this poster, we present the development framework and system architecture of GEF, including the newly discovered meta-level handler, as well as some other system successes, failures, and insights.

In a two- or three-dimensional image array, the computation of Euclidean distance transform (EDT) is an important task. With the increasing application of 3D voxel images, it is useful to consider the distance transform of a 3D digital image array. Because the EDT computation is a global operation, it is prohibitively time consuming when performing the EDT for image processing. In order to provide the efficient transform computations, parallelism is employed. We first derive several important geometry relations and properties among parallel planes. We then, develop a parallel algorithm for the three-dimensional Euclidean distance transform (3D-EDT) on the EREW PRAM computation model. The time complexity of our parallel algorithm is O(log/sup 2/ N) for an N/spl times/N/spl times/N image array and this is currently the best known result. A generalized parallel algorithm for the 3D-EDT is also proposed. We implement the proposed algorithms sequentially, the performance of which exceeds the existing algorithms (proposed by Yamada, 1984). Finally, we develop the corresponding parallel programs on both the emulated EREW PRAM model computer and the IBM SP2 to verify the speed-up properties of the proposed algorithms.

The computation model on which the algorithms are developed is the reconfigurable array of processors with wider bus networks (abbreviated to RAPWBN). The main difference between the RAPWBN model and other existing reconfigurable parallel processing systems is that the bus width of each network is bounded within the range [2,[/spl radic/(N)]]. Such a strategy not only saves the silicon area of the chip as well as increases the computational power enormously, but the strategy also allows the execution speed of the proposed algorithms to be tuned by the bus bandwidth. To demonstrate the computational power of the RAPWBN, the channel-assignment problem is derived in this paper. For the channel-assignment problem with N pairs of components, we first design an O(T + [N//spl omega/]) time parallel algorithm using 2N processors with a 2N-row by 2N-column bus network, where the bus width of each bus network is /spl omega/-bit for 2 /spl les/ /spl omega/ /spl les/ [/spl radic/N] and T = [log/sub /spl omega//N] + 1. By tuning the bus bandwidth to the natural log N-bit and the extended N/sup 1/c/-bit (N/sup 1/c/ > log N) for any constant c and c /spl ges/ 1, two more results which run in O(log N/log log N) and O(1) time, respectively, are also derived. When compared to the algorithms proposed by Olariu et al. [17] and Lin [14], it is shown that our algorithm runs in the equivalent time complexity while significantly reducing the number of processors to O(N).

In a two or three-dimensional image array, the computation of Euclidean distance transform (EDT) is an important task. With the increasing application of 3D voxel images, it is useful to consider the distance transform of a 3D digital image array. Because the EDT is a global operation, it is prohibitively time consuming when performing the EDT for image generation. In order to provide the efficient transform computations, parallelism is employed. In this paper we first derive several important geometry relations and properties among parallel planes. We then develop a parallel algorithm for the three-dimensional Euclidean distance transform (3D-EDT) on the EREW PRAM computation model. The time complexity of our parallel algorithm is O(log/sup 2/ N) for an N/spl times/N/spl times/N image array.