An evaluation of the model of stigmergy in a robocup rescue multiagent system

Abstract

A lot of scientists study the behavior of insect’s colony like ants, wasps and bees. Through these researches, it is possible to establish patterns used by a group of insects and apply these patterns in other domains. In this paper it will be showed the use of stigmergy in a rescue situation using the RoboCup Rescue simulator. We performed a set of experiments using a metaphor based on the behavior of an ant colony, where the communication between agents is done through the environment. We measured the performance of the ant-based algorithm, expecting to figure out the feasibility of using swarm intelligence in a rescue situation. We compared the results of using stigmergy against a multiagent system based on direct messages. The results showed that the use of stigmergy can outperform the use of direct messages.