Self-organized Path Formation by Ant Robots - An Approach to Understanding Ant’s Acts by Autonomous Distributed Systems -

Abstract

A formation of path from a nest to a feeding area by ants was investigated by using small robots. An ant communicates the route from the nest to feeding area to the other ants by a pheromone. When an ant discovers food, it goes back marking a pheromone on its way to the nest. Its fellows follow the trace of the pheromone and then they also mark the pheromone on their way to the nest after arriving at the feeding area. At the early stage, the route is a complicated line. A lot of ants’ coming and going optimize the route from the nest to the feeding area. We observed the behavior of ants. Based on the observation we designed an ant type robot. Then we investigated the formation process of the route from the nest to the feeding area by artificial ants.