"Swarm Intelligence: An Artificial Life Simulator Exploring the Role of Local Communication in Task Allocation and Switching in Ants"

Supervised by Dr AJ Sharkey

Abstract

Most people's view of an ant colony and ants in general is that they simply pose harmless little insects that move randomly and gather food in their underground nests. The untrained eye would have never guessed the level of complexity and organisation that is required in order for an ant colony to survive. The simple ant is part of a huge group, which cooperate to create one superorganism, with a strict agenda of tasks to do. Without any central authority or the ability of complex cognitive thought from the individuals, the colony seems to self organise and in fact adjust its resources in a quite efficient way.

This dissertation investigates the role of local communication in the assignment of tasks, task switching and in general the ant's reaction to the environmental changes. Also the role of indirect and direct communication on how it affects the decisions of the single ant will be investigated. Finally how the aggregation of these simple decisions makes up a global behavioural pattern which proves to be optimal for the colony in general.