Termites: Nest Building
- System Behavior: Tropical termites construct mounds
that can exceed five meters in height and ten tons in mass,
without central control.
- Responsibilities:
- Metabolize bodily waste, which contains pheromones. The
mounds are constructed from this material
- Wander randomly, preferring the strongest pheromone
concentration.
- At each time step, decide stochastically whether to
deposit the current load of waste. The probability increases
with pheromone intensity and the amount of waste the termite
is carrying.
- Integration: Initial deposits will tend to attract
termites and become bigger. Because pheromones decay and
aggregate, the most recent deposits at the center of the pile
are the strongest, so a tower is built.
José M. Vidal
.
5 of 13