Ants meeting algorithms

Abstract

Ant robots have very low computational power and limited memory. They communicate by leaving pheromones in the environment. In order to create a cooperative intelligent behavior, ants may need to get together; however, they may not know the locations of other ants. Hence, we focus on an ant variant of the rendezvous problem, in which two ants are to be brought to the same location in finite time. We introduce two algorithms that solve this problem for two ants by simulating a bidirectional search in different environment settings. An algorithm for an environment with no obstacles and a general algorithm that handles all types of obstacles. We provide detailed discussion on the different attributes, size of pheromone required, and the performance of these algorithms.