Abstract:
Tag is a children s game based on symmetrical pursuit and
evasion. In the experiments described here, control programs for
mobile agents (simulated vehicles) are evolved based on their skill at
the game of tag. A player s fitness is determined by how well it
performs when placed in competition with several opponents chosen
randomly from the coevolving population of players. In the beginning,
the quality of play is very poor. Then slightly better strategies
begin to exploit the weaknesses of others. Through evolution, guided
by competitive fitness, increasingly better strategies emerge over
time.
Keywords:
co-evolution, competitive
fitness, evolution of behavior, pursuit, evasion, mediocre stable
states, genetic programming, genetic algorithms.
Citation:
Reynolds, C. W. (1994) Competition, Coevolution
and the Game of Tag, in the proceedings of
Artificial Life IV, R. Brooks and P. Maes, Editors, ISBN
0-262-52190-3, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pages 59-69.
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