NEVIL: Nurturing and EVolution of Intelligence and Learning

This the base project for NEVIL light-switch based nurturing experiments. This project provides libraries and base classes for different experiments to be build upon.

This repository is meant to be forked and extended for different experiments.

Usage

You can clone this repository by running:

git clone https://github.com/ou-real/nevil-base.git

Compilation/Install

Windows

• Someone please write this

Unix

The binaries will be written to build folder.

cmake CMakeLists.txt <-DDEBUG=ON/OFF> <-DO=ON/OFF> <-DGUI=ON/OFF> 
make

Options:

• DDEBUG: for enabling debug mode. This value is OFF by default.
• DO: This flag enables O3 optimization and turns off assertions. This value is OFF by default.
• DGUI: For enabling GUI (disables multithreading). This value is OFF by default.

Execution

You can run this application by executing the following command. The binaries are written to the build directory.

cd build
./nevil <args>

Command line arguments

This program takes command line arguments both for the simulation config and specific experiment config. You can pass any arguments (as long as they are not taken) and use them in your experiment.

Simulation Arguments

All arguments have default values

• output: The output folder for this application. result by default.
• xp_path: The path for output of that specific run only. Uses time for naming the directory by default.
• tn: The number of threads. By default number_of_cores - 1. If you use negative numbers it will use number_of_cores - n. You can use 0 for all cores.
• mt: Maximum number of trials to be simulates. 30 by default.
• rs: Random seed. Uses a random seed to initialize the random number generator. Note if this argument is specified, the application will only run 1 trial and uses no threading.
• xn: Experiment name. Default values are set in trial_controller.cpp: TestTrial.
• mg: Maximum number of generations. Default values are set in trial_controller.cpp: 200.
• ms: Maximum number of timesteps. Default values are set in trial_controller.cpp: 1000.
• ps: Population size. Default values are set in trial_controller.cpp: 80.

JSON

You can use JSON to pass the desired command line arguments to the program.

./nevil control.json

JSON Example:

{
  "tn": 1,
  "mg": 200,
  "xn": "TestTrial",
  "ms": 1000,
  "ps": 80
}

Specifying using command line

You have to use a dash - before the name of the argument the followed by the value. Example

./nevil -tn 1 -ps 80 -sn true -xn TestTrial -ms 1000 -mg 200

Adding Experiments

First you need to create a repository under the ou-real organization and name it nevil-. Do not add any files to this repo.

####Forking this repository To fork this repository you need to follow the instructions below:

git clone <your new repository>
cd <your new repository>
git remote add upstream https://github.com/ou-real/nevil-base.git
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/master
git push origin master

Now you have a fork of nevil-base.

Making changes

To add experiments you need to extend the following classes and provide your own implementation for at least the virtual methods. The files prefixed with test are place holders and can be deleted. You may follow the pattern used in test files. Here is a list of classes that you need to extend:

• arena Example: test_arena
• robot Example: test_robot
• individual Example: test_individual
• trial Example: test_trial. You need to include this module in trial_controller.hpp and change the type of * _trial to nevil::your_trial
• You also need to make a population class Example: test_population

You can look at other experiments in this organization as a guide.

Keep up to date with nevil-base

Too keep your code up to date with this repository, you can follow the instructions on syncing a fork to cherry pick the changes that are made to nevil-base. This will not override your changes.

Dependencies

• GCC or Clang
• CMake
• ENKI: Already included in the project.
• QT4.8: Optional, to enable GUI.

Install Dependencies

Windows

• Someone please write this

Unix

OS X

To install the required packages you need to have Xcode installed. For convenience, you also need to have either HomeBrew or MacPorts installed. To install the required packages run the following commands:

xcode-select --install

If you are using HomeBrew run the following commands:

brew install cmake
brew install qt

If you are using MacPorts run the following commands:

sudo port install cmake
sudo port install qt4-mac

Debian based Linux

To install the required packages run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install git-core
sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev

Structure

nevil-base
├── README.md                   - Description
├── .gitignore                  - Files ignore by Git
├── CMakeLists.txt              - Cmake file for this project
├── .travis.yml                 - Travis build and test file
├── include
│    ├── Enki                   - The ENKI project code with some modification in CMakeFiles
│    │    ├── enki              - Contains the ENKI library files and headers
│    │    ├── viewer            - Contains the GUI library files and headers 
│    │    └── ...
│    ├── json                   - A library for reading JSON files.
│    └── nevil                  - Contains Header files for the NEVIL project
│         ├── arena             - Header files for simulation arena
│         ├── gui               - Header files for GUI
│         ├── parallel          - Header files for parallelization
│         ├── robot-controller  - Header files for robot controllers (i.e ANN)
│         ├── util              - Header files for utility modules
│         └── *.hpp             - Other header files specific to the project
└── src                         - Implementation files for the NEVIL project.
    ├── arena                   - Implementation files for simulation arena
    ├── gui                     - Implementation files for GUI
    ├── parallel                - Implementation files for parallelization
    ├── robot-controller        - Implementation files for robot controllers (i.e ANN)
    ├── util                    - Implementation files for utility modules
    └── *.cpp                   - Other implementation files specific to the project

Potential Bugs

To do

License

MIT license