A swarm intelligence based approach to the mine detection problem

This research focuses on the application of swarm intelligence to the problem of mine detection. Swarm Intelligence concepts have captivated the interests of researchers mainly in collective robotics, optimization problems (traveling salesman problem (TSP), quadratic assignment problem, graph coloring etc.), and communication networks (routing) etc [1]. In the mine detection problem we are faced with sub problems such as searching for the mines over the minefield, defusing them effectively, and assuring that the field is clear of mines within the least possible time. In the problem, we assume that the mines can be diffused by the collective action of the robots for which a model based on ant colonies is given. In the first part of the project we study the ant colony system applied to the mine detection problem. The theoretical aspects such as the ant\u27s behavior (reaction of the ants to various circumstances that it faces), their motion over the minefield, and their process of defusing the mines are investigated. In the second section we highlight a certain formulation that the ants may be given for doing the task effectively. The ants do the task effectively when they are able to assure that the minefield is clear of the mines within the least possible time. A compilation of the results obtained by the various studies is tabulated. In the third and final section we talk about our emulations conducted on the Multi Agent Biorobotics Lab-built groundscout robots, which were used for the demonstration of our swarm intelligence-based algorithms at a practical basis. The various projects thus far conducted were a part of the Multi Agent Biorobotics Lab at Rochester Institute of Technology

HCC Architecture - Hormonal Communications and Control Architecture

This thesis aims to provide a novel framework for a multiagent system implementation. The major feature of the proposed architecture is the introduction of the biological concept of hormones. The hormones are passed via the communication network to convey limited global system state knowledge. The agents\u27 response to a hormone is interpreted depending on its own local agent state. The primary focus of this thesis is the development of the particulars of the architecture. Prior work of multiagent systems research is reviewed and studied for contributions. Biological studies of hormones are employed to draw out interaction rules and analyze control mechanisms in a biological organism. The hormonal communication and control architecture is constructed, with major components detailed by flowcharts. The proposal is tested with two simulations: A minesweeping problem that has been modeled by other models, and an application of the architecture to a hypothetical ant colony. Research on biological ants is presented to suggest the behavior and goals of a model configured to employ the HCC architecture. The model is fleshed out, and the decisions made by considerations to the architecture are explained. The implementation of the simulation programming with the SWARM programming libraries for the Objective-C language is discussed. The data from experimental runs are analyzed with attention to global action

WEHST: Wearable Engine for Human-Mediated Telepresence

This dissertation reports on the industrial design of a wearable computational device created to enable better emergency medical intervention for situations where electronic remote assistance is necessary. The design created for this doctoral project, which assists practices by paramedics with mandates for search-and-rescue (SAR) in hazardous environments, contributes to the field of human-mediated teleparamedicine (HMTPM). Ethnographic and industrial design aspects of this research considered the intricate relationships at play in search-and-rescue operations, which lead to the design of the system created for this project known as WEHST: Wearable Engine for Human-Mediated Telepresence. Three case studies of different teams were carried out, each focusing on making improvements to the practices of teams of paramedics and search-and-rescue technicians who use combinations of ambulance, airplane, and helicopter transport in specific chemical, biological, radioactive, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) scenarios. The three paramedicine groups included are the Canadian Air Force 442 Rescue Squadron, Nelson Search and Rescue, and the British Columbia Ambulance Service Infant Transport Team. Data was gathered over a seven-year period through a variety of methods including observation, interviews, examination of documents, and industrial design. The data collected included physiological, social, technical, and ecological information about the rescuers. Actor-network theory guided the research design, data analysis, and design synthesis. All of this leads to the creation of the WEHST system. As identified, the WEHST design created in this dissertation project addresses the difficulty case-study participants found in using their radios in hazardous settings. As the research identified, a means of controlling these radios without depending on hands, voice, or speech would greatly improve communication, as would wearing sensors and other computing resources better linking operators, radios, and environments. WEHST responds to this need. WEHST is an instance of industrial design for a wearable “engine” for human-situated telepresence that includes eight interoperable families of wearable electronic modules and accompanying textiles. These make up a platform technology for modular, scalable and adaptable toolsets for field practice, pedagogy, or research. This document details the considerations that went into the creation of the WEHST design

On Collective Computation

Postprint (published version

Digitization, innovation, and participation: digital conviviality of the Google Cultural Institute

2018 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document

Organisation of foraging in ants

In social insects, foraging is often cooperative, and so requires considerable organisation. In most ants, organisation is a bottom-up process where decisions taken by individuals result in emergent colony level patterns. Individuals base their decisions on their internal state, their past experience, and their environment. By depositing trail pheromones, for example, ants can alter the environment, and thus affect the behaviour of their nestmates. The development of emergent patterns depends on both how individuals affect the environment, and how they react to changes in the environment. Chapters 4 – 9 investigate the role of trail pheromones and route memory in the ant Lasius niger. Route memories can form rapidly and be followed accurately, and when route memories and trail pheromones contradict each other, ants overwhelmingly follow route memories (chapter 4). Route memories and trail pheromones can also interact synergistically, allowing ants to forage faster without sacrificing accuracy (chapter 5). Home range markings also interact with other information sources to affect ant behaviour (chapter 6). Trail pheromones assist experienced ants when facing complex, difficult-to-learn routes (chapter 7). When facing complicated routes, ants deposit more pheromone to assist in navigation and learning (chapter 7). Deposition of trail pheromones is suppressed by ants leaving a marked path (chapter 5), strong pheromone trails (chapter 7) and trail crowding (chapter 8). Colony level ‘decisions’ can be driven by factors other than trail pheromones, such as overcrowding at a food source (chapter 9). Chapter 10 reviews the many roles of trail pheromones in ants. Chapters 11 – 14 focus on the organisation of cooperative food retrieval. Pheidole oxyops workers arrange themselves non-randomly around items to increase transport speeds (chapter 11). Groups of ants will rotate food items to reduce drag (chapter 12). Chapters 13 and 14 encompass the ecology of cooperative transport, and how it has shaped trail pheromone recruitment in P. oxyops and Paratrechina longicornis. Lastly, chapter 15 provide a comprehensive review of cooperative transport in ants and elsewhere

An investigation into XSets of primitive behaviours for emergent behaviour in stigmergic and message passing antlike agents

Ants are fascinating creatures - not so much because they are intelligent on their own, but because as a group they display compelling emergent behaviour (the extent to which one observes features in a swarm which cannot be traced back to the actions of swarm members). What does each swarm member do which allows deliberate engineering of emergent behaviour? We investigate the development of a language for programming swarms of ant agents towards desired emergent behaviour. Five aspects of stigmergic (pheromone sensitive computational devices in which a non-symbolic form of communication that is indirectly mediated via the environment arises) and message passing ant agents (computational devices which rely on implicit communication spaces in which direction vectors are shared one-on-one) are studied. First, we investigate the primitive behaviours which characterize ant agents' discrete actions at individual levels. Ten such primitive behaviours are identified as candidate building blocks of the ant agent language sought. We then study mechanisms in which primitive behaviours are put together into XSets (collection of primitive behaviours, parameter values, and meta information which spells out how and when primitive behaviours are used). Various permutations of XSets are possible which define the search space for best performer XSets for particular tasks. Genetic programming principles are proposed as a search strategy for best performer XSets that would allow particular emergent behaviour to occur. XSets in the search space are evolved over various genetic generations and tested for abilities to allow path finding (as proof of concept). XSets are ranked according to the indices of merit (fitness measures which indicate how well XSets allow particular emergent behaviour to occur) they achieve. Best performer XSets for the path finding task are identifed and reported. We validate the results yield when best performer XSets are used with regard to normality, correlation, similarities in variation, and similarities between mean performances over time. Commonly, the simulation results yield pass most statistical tests. The last aspect we study is the application of best performer XSets to different problem tasks. Five experiments are administered in this regard. The first experiment assesses XSets' abilities to allow multiple targets location (ant agents' abilities to locate continuous regions of targets), and found out that best performer XSets are problem independent. However both categories of XSets are sensitive to changes in agent density. We test the influences of individual primitive behaviours and the effects of the sequences of primitive behaviours to the indices of merit of XSets and found out that most primitive behaviours are indispensable, especially when specific sequences are prescribed. The effects of pheromone dissipation to the indices of merit of stigmergic XSets are also scrutinized. Precisely, dissipation is not causal. Rather, it enhances convergence. Overall, this work successfully identify the discrete primitive behaviours of stigmergic and message passing ant-like devices. It successfully put these primitive behaviours together into XSets which characterize a language for programming ant-like devices towards desired emergent behaviour. This XSets approach is a new ant language representation with which a wider domain of emergent tasks can be resolved

An investigation into XSets of primitive behaviours for emergent behaviour in stigmergic and message passing antlike agents

Ants are fascinating creatures - not so much because they are intelligent on their own, but because as a group they display compelling emergent behaviour (the extent to which one observes features in a swarm which cannot be traced back to the actions of swarm members). What does each swarm member do which allows deliberate engineering of emergent behaviour? We investigate the development of a language for programming swarms of ant agents towards desired emergent behaviour. Five aspects of stigmergic (pheromone sensitive computational devices in which a non-symbolic form of communication that is indirectly mediated via the environment arises) and message passing ant agents (computational devices which rely on implicit communication spaces in which direction vectors are shared one-on-one) are studied. First, we investigate the primitive behaviours which characterize ant agents' discrete actions at individual levels. Ten such primitive behaviours are identified as candidate building blocks of the ant agent language sought. We then study mechanisms in which primitive behaviours are put together into XSets (collection of primitive behaviours, parameter values, and meta information which spells out how and when primitive behaviours are used). Various permutations of XSets are possible which define the search space for best performer XSets for particular tasks. Genetic programming principles are proposed as a search strategy for best performer XSets that would allow particular emergent behaviour to occur. XSets in the search space are evolved over various genetic generations and tested for abilities to allow path finding (as proof of concept). XSets are ranked according to the indices of merit (fitness measures which indicate how well XSets allow particular emergent behaviour to occur) they achieve. Best performer XSets for the path finding task are identifed and reported. We validate the results yield when best performer XSets are used with regard to normality, correlation, similarities in variation, and similarities between mean performances over time. Commonly, the simulation results yield pass most statistical tests. The last aspect we study is the application of best performer XSets to different problem tasks. Five experiments are administered in this regard. The first experiment assesses XSets' abilities to allow multiple targets location (ant agents' abilities to locate continuous regions of targets), and found out that best performer XSets are problem independent. However both categories of XSets are sensitive to changes in agent density. We test the influences of individual primitive behaviours and the effects of the sequences of primitive behaviours to the indices of merit of XSets and found out that most primitive behaviours are indispensable, especially when specific sequences are prescribed. The effects of pheromone dissipation to the indices of merit of stigmergic XSets are also scrutinized. Precisely, dissipation is not causal. Rather, it enhances convergence. Overall, this work successfully identify the discrete primitive behaviours of stigmergic and message passing ant-like devices. It successfully put these primitive behaviours together into XSets which characterize a language for programming ant-like devices towards desired emergent behaviour. This XSets approach is a new ant language representation with which a wider domain of emergent tasks can be resolved

Programming with agents new metaphors for thinking about computation

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (p. [197]-206).by Michael David Travers.M.S

2023- The Twenty-seventh Annual Symposium of Student Scholars

The full program book from the Twenty-seventh Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 18-21, 2023. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/sssprograms/1027/thumbnail.jp