This article demonstrates the possibility that robotic systems can automatically design robots with complex morphologies and tightly adapted control systems at a low cost. These automatic designs are inspired by nature and achieved through an artificial coevolutionary process to adapt the bodies and brains of artificial life-forms simultaneously through interaction with a simulated reality. Through the use of rapid manufacturing, these evolved designs can be transferred from virtual to true reality. The artificial evolution process embedded in realistic physical simulation can create simple designs often recognizable from the history of biology or engineering. This paper provides a brief review of three generations of these robots, from automatically designed LEGO structures, through the GOLEM project of electromechanical systems based on “truss” structures, to new modular designs that make use of a generative, DNA-like representation.

The authors outline one path towards constructing interactive artworks with the potential for displaying novel behavior. They use Peter Cariani's taxonomy of adaptive robotic systems as a framework for comparing the capabilities of systems that interact with their environments. The authors then describe two examples of structurally autonomous systems that are able to construct their own sensors independently of a human designer. The first device, the evolved radio , is the result of a recent hardware evolution (HE) experiment conducted by the authors. The second device, the electrochemical ear , was constructed almost 50 years ago by the British cybernetician Gordon Pask. The emergent behavior in both systems is only possible because many conventional engineering constraints were relaxed during their construction. Using existing technology, artists have the opportunity to explore the potential of structurally autonomous systems as interactive artworks.