Related papers: Memory Lower Bounds for Randomized Collaborative S…
We introduce the Ants Nearby Treasure Search (ANTS) problem, which models natural cooperative foraging behavior such as that performed by ants around their nest. In this problem, k probabilistic agents, initially placed at a central…
We generalize the classical cow-path problem [7, 14, 38, 39] into a question that is relevant for collective foraging in animal groups. Specifically, we consider a setting in which k identical (probabilistic) agents, initially placed at…
Consider the Ants Nearby Treasure Search (ANTS) problem introduced by Feinerman, Korman, Lotker, and Sereni (PODC 2012), where $n$ mobile agents, initially placed at the origin of an infinite grid, collaboratively search for an…
We study the problem of collective tree exploration in which a team of $k$ mobile agents must collectively visit all nodes of an unknown tree in as few moves as possible. The agents all start from the root and discover adjacent edges as…
We introduce the study of the ant colony house-hunting problem from a distributed computing perspective. When an ant colony's nest becomes unsuitable due to size constraints or damage, the colony must relocate to a new nest. The task of…
Pheromones are a chemical substance produced and released by ants as means of communication. In this work we present the minimum amount of pheromones necessary and sufficient for a colony of ants (identical mobile agents) to…
We consider the ANTS problem [Feinerman et al.] in which a group of agents collaboratively search for a target in a two-dimensional plane. Because this problem is inspired by the behavior of biological species, we argue that in addition to…
In collective tree exploration, a team of $k$ mobile agents is tasked to go through all edges of an unknown tree as fast as possible. An edge of the tree is revealed to the team when one agent becomes adjacent to that edge. The agents start…
This work introduces a novel, nature-inspired neural architecture search (NAS) algorithm based on ant colony optimization, Continuous Ant-based Neural Topology Search (CANTS), which utilizes synthetic ants that move over a continuous search…
Using elementary distributed computing techniques we suggest an explanation for two unexplained phenomena in regards to ant colonies, (a) a substantial amount of ants in an ant colony are idle, and (b) the observed low survivability of new…
A mobile agent navigating along edges of a simple connected graph, either finite or countably infinite, has to find an inert target (treasure) hidden in one of the nodes. This task is known as treasure hunt. The agent has no a priori…
Cumulative memory -- the sum of space used per step over the duration of a computation -- is a fine-grained measure of time-space complexity that was introduced to analyze cryptographic applications like password hashing. It is a more…
Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) has evolved into a highly promising issue owing to the latest breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), among other reasons. This emerging growth increases the need to…
Many ant species employ distributed population density estimation in applications ranging from quorum sensing [Pra05], to task allocation [Gor99], to appraisal of enemy colony strength [Ada90]. It has been shown that ants estimate density…
A matrix $M: A \times X \rightarrow \{-1,1\}$ corresponds to the following learning problem: An unknown element $x \in X$ is chosen uniformly at random. A learner tries to learn $x$ from a stream of samples, $(a_1, b_1), (a_2, b_2) \ldots$,…
Several mobile agents, modelled as deterministic automata, navigate in an infinite line in synchronous rounds. All agents start in the same round. In each round, an agent can move to one of the two neighboring nodes, or stay idle. Agents…
We consider cooperation among insects, modeled as cooperation between mobile robots on a graph. Within this setting, we consider the problem of mobile robot dispersion on graphs. The study of mobile robots on a graph is an interesting…
We study the problem of distributed task allocation inspired by the behavior of social insects, which perform task allocation in a setting of limited capabilities and noisy environment feedback. We assume that each task has a demand that…
Resource constraints can fundamentally change both learning and decision-making. We explore how memory constraints influence an agent's performance when navigating unknown environments using standard reinforcement learning algorithms.…
We study the problem of collective tree exploration (CTE) where a team of $k$ agents is tasked to traverse all the edges of an unknown tree as fast as possible, assuming complete communication between the agents. In this paper, we present…