AIrium 2

AIrium is an artificial life simulation environment. The second iteration of the project focuses on solving the problems of the first:

• variety in creature body and mind structure
• removing evolution limits (such as brain size)
• allowing different species to mate and produce possibly stable children
• speed: trying to get the simulation to be as fast as possible on consumer grade hardware

World

The world is a matrix where each cell is either empty or occupied by a structure. Every structure occupies only one cell.

Creatures and other structures

A structure is a matrix where each cell is either empty or occupied by a Block. Each adiacent Block can be connected. The blocks make up both the body and, if the blocks are connected, the mind.

A structure with an operational mind governing the body is called a creature or machine.

There are four kinds of blocks:

• neuron blocks
• action blocks
• sensor blocks
• resource blocks

Connection

• Each block can be connected to every other adiacent block (diagonals too), so each block has 8 connection weights.
• A connection is a weight, which is a floating point number.
• A neuron block's output is its adiacent blocks's current stored signals multiplied by the appropriate weight.
• If the connection is 0, then there's no connection
• if the connection is not 0 then there is a connection
• the highest abs(val) where val is the connection/weight is, the stronger the connection
• the weight (or connection) is a floating point number between -1 and 1 included.

Signals

A signal is a floating point value. Each block stores a signal.

• new blocks contain the 0 signal (null signal).
• blocks store a signal forever or until it is changed.

A signal can be any floating point value between -1 and 1.

• any signal higher than 1 will be considered to be 1
• any signal lower than -1 will be considered to be -1

Neuron (Processing) Blocks

Their signal is the sum of all the values provided by their input connections.

Action (Output) blocks

They take an input signal and act by doing something, for example:

• they move the body in space
• they eject something
• they change color
• they interact with other structures
• they "eat" a block
• nothing (can be useful to stop signals from passing through)

Sensor (Input) blocks

They give adiacent blocks a signal.

Some examples:

• they communicate how far is the first structure in a straight line
• they communicate the amount of structures in relation to blank spaces in an area (popularity in an area)
• they communicate the color/type/activity of the first block in a straight line
• they communicate information about the presence of a particular kind of structure in a direction
• they communicate information about the structure itself, like integrity of adiacent blocks

Generated signals are floating point numbers ranging from -1 to 1 included.

Combined (Input+Output) blocks

They act as Sensor blocks and Action blocks at the same time.

Examples:

• a "mouth" block that can communicate wether food is available to eat and can receive eat commands at the same time
• a memory block, which has a connection that when activated enables writing the value from another connection in the block, then it just outputs its stored value.

Evaluating a machine's mind's iteration

for each iteration, the stored signal of each block is calculated using its connection with adiacent blocks.

This new stored signal is stored in a special variable without overwriting the current stored signal so that the process can be easily accomplished in multithreading execution environments.

After all the new stored signals have been calculated, their value is applied to the current stored signal and the calculation process is repeated. This is done to encourage parallel computing.

Note: the bigger a machine, the slower it reacts to signals because they need more time to travel through the body

Reproduction and evolution

This requires two action blocks:

• the egg block
• the fertilizer block

machines can of course have both blocks, or even multiples of them.

• the egg block leaves a structure behind, an egg. This egg will either be fertilized or deplete energy and die.
• the fertilizer block can be used on egg structure to fertilize them

Hatching

When the egg hatches, a structure is born. The structure is built using a combination of the father's and the mother's blocks, then a mutation is applied to the result.

Energy

This requires some new blocks:

• the battery block

• the energy drain block

• the generator block

• the stomach block

• the energy drain block sucks energy from a structure's batteries.

• the battery block stores energy and emits the current level to its connections

• the generator block uses up a lot of energy, then gives back slightly more

• the stomach block can be used to eat blocks from another structure. It then uses some energy to digest the blocks, providing it back with an extra amount after it's done.

Consumption

• each action block uses up a moderate amount of energy when activated
• each sensor block uses up a small amount of energy when activated

Primordial world

The world should be composed of a variety of huge, small and anything in between energy farming or storage structures.

Even better, there should be structures generating energy and shipping it off in space.

Primordial creature

Since we can't expect that interesting machines pop up from nothing in our simulation, we need to design one. On Earth, it took billions of years for something to show up, but we want to speed things up a little bit.

This machine needs:

• to search for energy sources
• to find energy sources and get there
• to use energy sources to fill up batteries
• to successfully create fertilized eggs

From there, maybe something smarter can show up. It is essential that the user can save a machine at any time, even early in an implementation. We don't want to lose good machines!

Interface

• navigate world
  • has a small selected structure sidebar with additional information
• navigate structure
  • ability to save the structure to file
  • has a small selected block sidebar with block informaton
• view block
  • provides all info about the block and maybe signal activity monitoring

controls to handle simulation speed and pausing.