VOA常速英语2015--新型机器人可独立繁育后代（在线收听）

新型机器人可独立繁育后代

It's a robotic version of nature's survival of the fittest. The mother robot analyzes the performance of each of the “children” it creates, and incorporates preferential traits into the next generation.

这是机器人版的优胜劣汰。“母体”机器人对她所产生的“子体”机器人的性能进行评估，并将更加优越的性能传递给下一代。

As the mother creates them and puts them to work, she evaluates how they’re behaving, and she uses data from this behavior to create the next generation of robots.

就在“母体”机器人制作子体”机器人，并让他们开始运转时，“母体”开始对他们的运动状况进行测量，她会利用这些数据来产生下一代机器人。

There’s no human intervention, except for a computer command to create a robot capable of moving from one place to another. The mother builds its children by gluing together pieces with small motors inside, in different configurations. Then it watches how quickly the children move, keeping the designs of the ones that moved the fastest.

除了一台能够操控机器人左右移动的电脑以外，该系统并没有进行人工干预。“母体”机器人通过将塑料进行粘合，并装上驱动马达的方式来制作“子体”。之后，她将对“子体”的移动速度进行检测，并逐步提高移动速度。

The mother robot can actually build hundreds of child robots and see the performance of these child robots. And if their performance is good, keep their design for the next generation. And if bad, just let it go,

事实上，“母体”机器人可以产生上百个“子体”机器人，并对他们的性能进行评估。如果性能完好，“母体”将把会把此次设计留给下一代。如果不好就舍弃不用。

The motivation to produce better children is controlled by the research team, which provides an incentive.

生产性能更加完善的“子体”是由研究小组所控制的，小组起到了激励作用。

We program the robot based on some functions that define the reward the robot is going to get, depending on the construction that they make. They cannot change their own reward. In the case of the child robot, it’s distance, so the longer the distance the robot walks, the better the reward it receives,我们在对机器人进行编程时是根据一些功能进行制作的，这些功能能够对机器人多得到的奖励进行定义，并要根据机器人所生产的结构而定。机器人无法对奖励进行改变。在“子体”机器人的案例中，奖励就是行走距离，走的距离越长，奖励就会越多。

After several generations, the "children" were running twice as fast.

经过几代之后，“子体”机器人的速度是第一代的两倍。

The mother robot generated 500 robots to see what one is good and which one is bad,

“母体”机器人创造了500个“子体”机器人，并评估出哪个性能好，哪个性能差。

The researchers suggest the machines could be used in an auto plant, for example, where robot cameras scrutinize each car in the assembly line, evaluate any mistakes, and then design a better car.

研究人员认为该系统能够用于汽车制造厂，自动照相机能够对流水线上多每一辆车进行检测，找出错误，设计更加完善的汽车。