Stigmergy: Indirect Communication in Multiple Mobile Autonomous Agents

Abstract

Stigmergy is a process by which local agents acting on the environment change the environment in such a way as to change another agent's behavior. This form of indirect communication and local interactions between agents and the environment often leads to the self-organization of system structures. We present an experiment in which robot agents act independently to move objects (blocks) about in their environment, and inspect the outcome of these actions for clusters as an indication of increased organization. Results indicate that the agents did not act stigmergically, regardless of whether their behavior was fixed or random. However, the results indicate that the starting location of the blocks did have a significant effect on the final distributions. The effect initial conditions, types of emergence, and self-organization have on the global product of swarm behavior are discussed and future research is proposed.