Homeo

A software simulation of W. Ross Ashby's Homeostat, as described in Design for a Brain (1952) and Introduction to Cybernetics (1956).

Features

• Full simulation of all components of Ashby's original Homeostat (units, uniselectors, connections)
• Interactive GUI (PyQt5) for running and manipulating the simulated device
• Data logging and graphing capabilities
• Extensible to an arbitrary number of homeostatic units
• Generalized and supplemented model of a homeostatic unit, including Newtonian physics and continuous (Ornstein-Uhlenbeck) uniselectors
• Robotic component: use a homeostat as the controller of virtual robots in simulation environments (Webots, V-REP/CoppeliaSim)

Getting started

pip install -r requirements.txt
cd src
python -m Simulator.HomeoQtSimulation   # launch the GUI

Running tests

cd src
python -m pytest Unit_Tests/ -x -q

Project structure

src/
  Core/           # Homeostat core classes (units, connections, uniselectors)
  Helpers/        # Utility modules (signals, general helpers)
  Simulator/      # Simulation runners (CLI and GUI), GA experiments
  Unit_Tests/     # Pytest test suite
  HomeoExperiments/  # Predefined experiment configurations
  KheperaSimulator/  # Khepera robot integration
  RobotSimulator/    # Generic robot simulator
  Webots/            # Webots robot controller
resources/        # GUI resources (icons, images)

See CODE_OVERVIEW.md for a detailed walkthrough of the codebase, and ROBOTIC_OVERVIEW.md for the robotic integration.

License

See license.txt for details.