Analysis of a new swarm search algorithm based on trophallaxis

Abstract

We investigate a new swarm search algorithm based on the trophallactic behavior of social insects, specifically honey bees. The new algorithm does not require any agent-agent communication and does not require the agents to know position information. The agents, or bots, cluster together near peaks in the search space based on the fitness value at the locations where the agents collide. In this paper we describe the algorithm and analyze its effectiveness using a birth and death Markov chain. The analysis shows that the agents will congregate at or near the peaks, so the algorithm shows promise for using very simple robots in swarm search applications.