The Social Insect Metaphor Adam Dennis, Kate Patterson, Curtis Sanford, Andrew Vanderveen

Rationale Intelligent packets, called “Ants”, that interact to keep the contents of the routing tables up to date. These Ants are only capable of simple stochastic decisions influenced by the availability of previously laid stigmergic, volatile trails.

Goals of Ants To reach the “food” (destination), and make a successful return path

Drawbacks On encountering multiple stigmergic trails, an Ant will probabilistically choose the route with greatest stigmergic reinforcement. Naturally, this will correspond to the ‘fastest’ route to the food.

AntNet Created by Di Caro and Dorigo Forward Ants Backward Ants Routing Tables Synchronization

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 3

Scenario 4

Scenario 5

Questions?