[] Vitorino Ramos, Filipe Almeida, Artificial Ant Colonies in Digital Image Habitats – A Mass Behaviour Effect Study on Pattern Recognition, Proceedings of ANTS´2000 – 2nd International Workshop on Ant Algorithms (From Ant Colonies to Artificial Ants), Marco Dorigo, Martin Middendorf & Thomas Stüzle (Eds.), pp. 113-116, Brussels, Belgium, 7-9 Sep. 2000.

Figure - Transition behaviour of one Artificial Ant Colony in presence of a sudden change in his artificial digital image Habitat, between two different Digital Grey Images. Created with an Artificial Ant Colony, that uses images as Habitats, being sensible to their gray levels. At the second row, Kafka image is replaced as a substrate, by Red Ant. In black, the higher levels of pheromone (a chemical evaporative sugar substance used by swarms on their orientation trought out the trails). It’s exactly this artificial evaporation and the computational ant collective group sinergy realocating their upgrades of pheromone at interesting places, that allows for the emergence of adaptation and perception of new images. Only some of the 6000 iterations processed are represented. The system does not have any type of hierarchy, and ants communicate only in indirect forms, through out the sucessive alteration that they found on the Habitat.

Figure - Transition behaviour of one Artificial Ant Colony in presence of a sudden change in his artificial digital image Habitat, between two different Digital Grey Images. Created with an Artificial Ant Colony, that uses images as Habitats, being sensible to their gray levels. At the second row, "Kafka" image is replaced as a substrate, by "Red Ant". In black, the higher levels of pheromone (a chemical evaporative sugar substance used by swarms on their orientation trought out the trails). It’s exactly this artificial evaporation and the computational ant collective group sinergy realocating their upgrades of pheromone at interesting places, that allows for the emergence of adaptation and "perception" of new images. Only some of the 6000 iterations processed are represented. The system does not have any type of hierarchy, and ants communicate only in indirect forms, through out the sucessive alteration that they found on the Habitat.

Some recent studies have pointed that, the self-organization of neurons into brain-like structures, and the self-organization of ants into a swarm are similar in many respects. If possible to implement, these features could lead to important developments in pattern recognition systems, where perceptive capabilities can emerge and evolve from the interaction of many simple local rules. The principle of the method is inspired by the work of Chialvo and Millonas who developed the first numerical simulation in which swarm cognitive map formation could be explained. From this point, an extended model is presented in order to deal with digital image habitats, in which artificial ants could be able to react to the environment and perceive it. Evolution of pheromone fields point that artificial ant colonies could react and adapt appropriately to any type of digital habitat.
 

 

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