Programming with Python. Part 4. First Demo complete

emerging-mind.org
eJournal ISSN 2567-6466
(info@emerging-mind.org)
Gerd Doeben-Henisch
gerd@doeben-henisch.de
October 20, 2017

PDF

ZIP-SW

1 First Milestone Reached

The basic idea from the beginning was to check whether it is possible to
program in python a simple actor-environment demo with a graphical user interface (GUI).

During the parts 1-3 it could be proved step wise that all the wanted
features could be realized.

Clearly the actual code is far from being elegant nor is he completely
explained. But everybody can inspect the code delivered as a ZIP-folder.

This first GUI-based demo contains the following features:

1. A 7 x 7 grid is offered with empty cells.
2. 20% are randomly occupied by obstacles (black cells).
3. 1% of cells is randomly occupied by food (i.e. here one cell) (green
cell).
4. The start position of an actor (red circle) can be selected by pointing
into the grid.
5. The number of cycles can be entered how often the environment shall
be repeat the event loop.
6. The type of behavior function of the actor can be selected: manually
(:= 0), fixed (:= 1) as well as random (:= 2). With option 1 or 2 the
demo is running by its own. With option 0 you have to select the next
direction manually by clicking into the grid.
7. While the demo is running it reports the actual energy level of the actor
as well as the actual ’Time of the environment’ (which corresponds
closely to the number of cycles).
8. If either the maximum number of cycles is reached or the energy of
the actor is below 0 the application will stop and after 10 s vanish from
the screen.

2 How to Continue

There are many options how to continue. Actually the following ones are
considered:

ACTOR-ENVIRONMENT FEATURES

1. Enhance the actual version with with e.g. offering the selection of
more parameters to be eligible.
2. Allow multiple actors simultaneously.
3. Allow the automatic repetition of a whole experiment over n-times.
4. Allow storing of results and statistical evaluations.
5. Start explorations of different behavior functions like genetic algorithms,
classifiers, reinforcement, learning similar to alpha go zero,
etc.
6. Enhance perceptual structures and motor patterns.
7. Check different cognitive architectures
8. Enable basic dialogues with the environment
9. …

COMPUTING FEATURES

1. Transfer the windows implementation on ubuntu 14.04 too.
2. Compare the different versions.
3. Integrate the actor-environment pattern within the ros-architecture
4. Allow real-world sensors and actors especially for robotics, for sound
art work, for picture art work, for sculpture art works as well as for text
art work)
5. Rewrite the actor-environment demo as a distributed process network.
6. Realize a first demo of a Local Learning Environment
7. …

Continue to part 5