Task Allocation in Ant Colonies
Name
Lynch_Task allocation.pdf
Size
425.89 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
46776d2e42add83d2a2ee3464e57b6ad
Author(s)
Cornejo, Alejandro
Dornhaus, Anna
Nagpal, Radhika
Lynch, Nancy A.
Date Issued
August 2014
Journal
Distributed Computing
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Citation
Cornejo, Alejandro et al. “Task Allocation in Ant Colonies.” Distributed Computing (2014): 46–60 © 2014 Springer-Verlag
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
In this paper we propose a mathematical model for studying the phenomenon of division of labor in ant colonies. Inside this model we investigate how simple task allocation mechanisms can be used to achieve an optimal division of labor.
We believe the proposed model captures the essential biological features of division of labor in ant colonies and is general enough to study a variety of different task allocation mechanisms. Within this model we propose a distributed randomized algorithm for task allocation that imposes only minimal requirements on the ants; it uses a constant amount of memory and relies solely on a primitive binary feedback function to sense the current labor allocation. We show that with high probability the proposed algorithm converges to a near-optimal division of labor in time which is proportional to the logarithm of the colony size.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45174-8_4
