Stigmergic MASA: A Stigmergy Based Algorithm for Multi-Target Search
Ouarda Zedadra, Nicolas Jouandeau, Hamid Seridi, Giancarlo Fortino
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15439/2014F395
Citation: Proceedings of the 2014 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, M. Ganzha, L. Maciaszek, M. Paprzycki (eds). ACSIS, Vol. 2, pages 1477–1485 (2014)
Abstract. We explore the on-line problem of coverage where multiple agents have to find a target whose position is unknown, and without a prior global information about the environment. In this paper a novel algorithm for multi-target search is described, it is inspired from water vortex dynamics and based on the principle of pheromone-based communication. According to this algorithm, called Stigmergic MASA (for ''Multi Ant Search Area''), the agents search nearby their base incrementally using turns around their center and around each other, until the target is found, with only a group of simple distributed cooperative Ant like agents, which communicate indirectly via depositing/detecting markers. This work improves the search performance in comparison with pure random walks, we show the obtained results using computer simulations.