Ant Foraging - Xholon App (GP)

What is it

This model uses genetic programming (GP) to evolve a solution to the ant foraging problem. The discussion that follows assumes you are generally familiar with GP. If not, see the references later in this document.

There are two parts to this apllication. Xholon performs all the ant behavior, while ECJ evolves new behaviors based on relative fitness.

How to use it

Run it:

  1. Run the Java application through the XhnEalontro GUI (org.primordion.xholon.app.Xhn.java), and select File --> Open --> ealontro --> AntForaging --> EcjAntForaging_xhn.xml.
  2. Expand the Controller node in the tree.
  3. Press the Start node.
  4. You should see the following text, or something similar, displayed in the console window.
  5. If you have JFreeChart installed, and if you have selected "JFreeChart" as the value of the UseDataPlotter parameter in EcjAntForaging_xhn.xml, you should see a chart showing the increase in fitness from one generation to the next (0.0 is the ideal fitness). If you don't have JFreeChart installed, then change the value of UseDataPlotter to "gnuplot", and look at the results that are saved to a .csv file in the statistics folder. If you have gnuplot installed, it can read the .plt script in the statistics folder to produce a displayable .png file from the .csv file, that should look similar to the one below.

Opening model: C:\Primordion\workspace\Ealontro\config\ealontro\AntForaging\EcjAntForaging_xhn.xml
AppM : false
InfoM : false
ErrorM : true
MaxProcessLoops : 1000
TimeStepInterval : 10
InheritanceHierarchyFile : ./config/ealontro/AntForaging/InheritanceHierarchy.xml
CompositeStructureHierarchyFile : ./config/ealontro/AntForaging/EcjCompositeStructureHierarchy.xml
ClassDetailsFile : ./config/ealontro/AntForaging/EcjClassDetails.xml
JavaClassName : org.primordion.ealontro.ec.app.antforaging.AppEcjAntForaging
UseDataPlotter : true
SaveSnapshots : false
UseGridViewer : true
UseGraphicalTreeViewer : false
EcjArgs : -file bin/org/primordion/ealontro/ec/app/antforaging/antForaging.params
computed worstStandardizedFitness : 144
C:\Primordion\workspace\Ealontro\config\ealontro\AntForaging\EcjAntForaging_xhn.xml

| ECJ
| An evolutionary computation system (version 15)
| By Sean Luke
| Contributors: L. Panait, G. Balan, S. Paus, Z. Skolicki,
|               J. Bassett, R. Hubley, and A. Chircop
| URL: http://cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/projects/ecj/
| Mail: ecj-help@cs.gmu.edu
|       (better: join ECJ-INTEREST at URL above)
| Date: April 4, 2006
| Current Java: 1.4.2_10 / Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM-1.4.2_10-b03
| Required Minimum Java: 1.3


Threads:  breed/1 eval/1
Seed: 1057144734 
Job: 0
Setting up
Processing GP Types
Processing GP Node Constraints
Processing GP Function Sets
Processing GP Tree Constraints
Initializing Generation 0
Population: 1024
Generation 1
Generation 2
Generation 3
Generation 4
Generation 5
Generation 6
Generation 7
Generation 8
Generation 9
Generation 10
Generation 11
Generation 12
Generation 13
Generation 14
Generation 15
Generation 16
Generation 17
Generation 18
Generation 19
Found Ideal Individual

ECJ Ant Foraging with GP

Things to notice

Things to try

Extending the model

Xholon and Ealontro features

This is the most advanced example of how best to use both Xholon and ECJ in the same application.

Credits and references

This application was described in: Koza, J. (1992). Genetic Programming. p.329-344

To learn more about genetic programming (GP), start with the wikipedia page.

GP

Visit the ECJ website to find out more about this tool.

ECJ