A. E. Eiben and Marc Schoenauer have recently released online a previously published paper that provides a concise, easy to understand introduction to the concept of Evolutionary Computing (PDF format). They describe the roots of the technique in the 1950s and the three independently developed implementations: evolutionary programming, genetic algorithms, and evolution strategies. They also describe the more recent addition to the fold, genetic programming. All of these techniques have applications to robotics. The authors remind us, "natural evolution can be considered as a powerful problem solver achieving Home Sapiens from chaos in only a couple of billion years". So far evolutionary algorithms seem equally adept at solving software-based problems. For more, A. E. Eiben has also authored a book on the subject, Introduction to Evolutionary Computing.