Abstract
This chapter discusses the meaning and implementation aspects of stigmergy when viewed as a coordination mechanism. It starts with a general review of stigmergy concepts and definitions established in biological systems, followed by some historical considerations. Subsequently, it proposes multi-agent representations that model various natural phenomena involving stigmergy.
Biological background on stigmergy and three computer models of stigmergy-based phenomena: stigmergy by pheromones, by silk and through activity.
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Notes
- 1.
A pheromone is a mixture of chemical substances that is released by an organism into its environment and causes specific behavioural or physiological reactions to other organisms of the same species that receive it [14]. The Greek roots of the term “pheromone” originally meant “to transfer excitement”.
- 2.
In the remaining, we will use environment to denote the model of the environment.
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Acknowledgement
Christine Bourjot and Vincent Chevrier wish to thank Bertrand Krafft and Alexandre Bernard for their fruitful collaboration about the modeling and simulation of web building.
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Bourjot, C., Desor, D., Chevrier, V. (2011). Stigmergy. In: Di Marzo Serugendo, G., Gleizes, MP., Karageorgos, A. (eds) Self-organising Software. Natural Computing Series. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17348-6_6
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