Geometric foraging strategies in multi-agent systems based on biological models

Abstract

In nature, communal hunting is often performed by predators by charging through an aggregation of prey. However, it has been noticed that variations exist in the geometric shape of the charging front; in addition, distinct differences arise between the shapes depending on the particulars of the feeding strategy. For example, each member of a dolphin foraging group must contribute to the hunt and will only be able to eat what it catches. On the other hand, some lions earn a “free lunch” by feigning help and later feasting on the prey caught by the more skilled hunters in the foraging group. We model the charging front of the predators as a curve moving through a prey density modeled as a reaction-diffusion process and we optimize the shape of the charging front in both the free lunch and no-free-lunch cases. These different situations are simulated under a number of varied types of predator-prey interaction models, and connections are made to multi-agent robot systems.