Re: New pheromone demo

> On 19 Jun 2023, at 23:43, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> po 19. 6. 2023 v 13:14 odesílatel Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org <mailto:dsr@w3.org>> napsal:
>> Swarms can be used as a model for how web agents can work together to achieve common goals.
>> 
>> I’ve developed a new demo that shows ants scuttling about looking for food guided by the pheromones they collectively deposit:
>> 
>>  https://www.w3.org/Data/demos/foraging/
>> ...
> I really like this!  I've been thinking about web scale agents like these ants.
> 
> What I was wondering about is giving each ant a URI.  Or perhaps giving the ant class a URI which could then be run to instantiate an ant.
> 
> You could then have them roaming the internet to find food, bring it back to the nest, leave trails for the other ants.  Maybe the ants also have energy and will die without some share of the food.

You need to develop the concept further. What does the ant actually do when “roaming the internet” and what kind of map is involved?  How is the map developed as a result of the collective efforts of the ants?

For a rather different scenario, consider a set of mobile agents that use Lidar or video to collectively map their 3D environment as they move around. Lidar produces point clouds, which are amenable to neural gas algorithms. Video is  more challenging, as it involves segmentation, object recognition, frame to frame consistency and depth perception. Each agent performs local processing as well as exchanging messages with other agents to collectively develop a consistent overall map.

For what’s worth, the ant foraging demo could be readily extended to model the diminution of food sources as the ants carry small amounts away. New food sources could be made to appear from time to time, and even new obstacles. Pheromone evaporation is slow, but key to enabling the colony to adapt to changes in the environment. However, too fast an evaporation rate will preclude the colony from learning good routes. Note: in the demo, the ants that are “lost” have no trails as they been away too long.

Best regards,

Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>