Review of Artificial Life Research

The paper presents a detailed review of the origin and development of artificial life, and looks back the important international conferences on artificial life. Then the paper focuses on illuminating the major research fields and ideologies of artificial life research. Finally the paper describes the applications of artificial life, especially in intelligent computation, simulation etc. The study of artificial life will help to reveal the essence and origin of life. It provides a new important tool to research biology and has great scientific significance.