Abstract
Some agent-based models use analogs of insect pheromones for coordination. We situate these techniques in the spectrum of modeling tools. Analysis and simulation show that pheromone models are intermediate between classical agent-based models and mean-field models, inspired by statistical physics. This position is not fixed, but can be adjusted by pheromone parameters (notably, the propagation factor), providing new design options for ABMs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Brueckner, S.: Return from the Ant: Synthetic Ecosystems for Manufacturing Control. Thesis at Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Computer Science (2000)
Brueckner, S., Belding, T., Bisson, R., Downs, E., Parunak, H.V.D.: Swarming Polyagents Executing Hierarchical Task Networks. In: Proceedings of Third IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO 2009), pp. 51–60. IEEE (2009)
Evans, M.: MP4/P4 Statistical Physics. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK (2009), http://www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/~martin/sp/
Glinton, R., Scerri, P., Sycara, K.: Exploiting Scale Invariant Dynamics for Efficient Information Propagation in Large Teams. In: Hoek, W.V.D., Kaminka, G.A. (eds.) The Ninth International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2010), pp. 21–28. IFAAMAS, Toronto (2010)
Levesque, H.J., Brachman, R.J.: Expressiveness and Tractability in Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. Computational Intelligence 3(2), 78–93 (1987)
Parunak, H.V.D.: Real-Time Agent Characterization and Prediction. In: Proceedings of International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2007), Industrial Track, pp. 1421–1428. ACM (2007)
Parunak, H.V.D.: A Mathematical Analysis of Collective Cognitive Convergence. In: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2009), pp. 473–480 (2009)
Parunak, H.V.D., Bisson, R., Brueckner, S.A.: Agent Interaction, Multiple Perspectives, and Swarming Simulation. In: Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2010), pp. 549–556. IFAAMAS (2010)
Parunak, H.V.D., Brueckner, S.: Ant-Like Missionaries and Cannibals: Synthetic Pheromones for Distributed Motion Control. In: Proceedings of Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents 2000), pp. 467–474 (2000)
Van Dyke Parunak, H., Brueckner, S.A.: Concurrent Modeling of Alternative Worlds with Polyagents. In: Antunes, L., Takadama, K. (eds.) MABS 2006. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4442, pp. 128–141. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Van Dyke Parunak, H., Savit, R., Riolo, R.L.: Agent-Based Modeling vs. Equation-Based Modeling: A Case Study and Users’ Guide. In: Sichman, J.S., Conte, R., Gilbert, N. (eds.) MABS 1998. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1534, pp. 10–25. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)
Sauter, J.A., Matthews, R., Parunak, H.V.D., Brueckner, S.A.: Performance of Digital Pheromones for Swarming Vehicle Control. In: Proceedings of Fourth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, pp. 903–910. ACM (2005)
Shnerb, N.M., Louzoun, Y., Bettelheim, E., Solomon, S.: The importance of being discrete: Life always wins on the surface. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97(19), 10322–10324 (2000)
Sterman, J.: Business Dynamics. McGraw-Hill, New York (2000)
Wilson, E.O., Bossert, W.H.: Chemical communication among animals. Recent Progress in Hormone Research 19, 673–716 (1963)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Van Dyke Parunak, H. (2012). Between Agents and Mean Fields. In: Villatoro, D., Sabater-Mir, J., Sichman, J.S. (eds) Multi-Agent-Based Simulation XII. MABS 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7124. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28400-7_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28400-7_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-28399-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-28400-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)