2020 the 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Control Engineering

Prevention of Ant Mills in Pheromone-Based Search Algorithm for Robot Swarms

Ahmad Reza Cheraghi Jochen Peters

Technology of Social Networks Technology of Social Networks
Heinrich Heine University Heinrich Heine University
Düsseldorf, Germany Düsseldorf, Germany
e-mail: ahmad.cheraghi@hhu.de e-mail:jochen.peters@hhu.de

Kalman Graffi
Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH
Offenbach am Main, Germany
e-mail: kalman.graffi@honda-ri.de

Abstract—Computer scientists use animal-based phenomenon
as source of inspiration to develop swarm algorithm and
simulate their behaviors. One example is ants foraging. For
finding food the ants are moving randomly in any direction.
After they found food, they spread pheromones to make it easy
for other ants to find it. The more ants, the better the
pheromone trail. This pheromone-based search algorithm
should increase the efficiency of food delivery. However, this
phenomenon includes a problem termed ant mill, which is well
known. An ant mill is happening when many ants are
spreading their pheromones in a closed area. This causes an
overlapping of the pheromones and creates a circle trail.
Consequently, the ants move in a never-ending loop without
ever reaching the food source. The result is starvation and
death.
In this paper, we take a closer look at three types of search
algorithms. Especially pheromone-based searching
algorithm, which creates ant mills and provide a solution to
overcome them. Our evaluation shows that a pheromone-based
search algorithm with ant mill prevention brings a significantly
better food delivery.
Keywords-multi-agent systems; simulation; robots; swarms;
ants; pheromones; search algorithms
Therefore, with higher number of ants the efficiency of the
food search and delivery increases. Computer scientists use
this kind of phenomenon, termed "pheromone-based
searching algorithm", to solve e.g. the famous travelling
salesman problem [2] or for secure routing solutions and
misbehavior detection mechanisms in wireless mash
networks [3]. However, an undesirable situation, that is well
known by scientists, is created by the pheromone-based
searching termed ant mill (see Fig. 1). Ant mill occurs when
many pheromone spreading ants are in a closed area and
their pheromones trails overlaps with each other so that the
trail becomes a closed circle. Thus, the ants get into this
circle and they run continuously in a loop without ever
reaching the food source. Consequently, the ants starve to
death because they are moving continuously in this
overlapped pheromone circle trail. This undesired situation is
described for the first time in 1944 the American Museum of
Natural History (New York City). They describe ant mill
very detailed in [4]. The first question of the creation of ant-
will is discussed in Delsuc [5]. They ask the question, why
ant mills (part of the ―army ant syndrome‖) are not
eliminated by the evolutionary history.

I. INTRODUCTION
Swarm is the collective behavior of many agents that
increases the efficiency. An example of swarm behavior are
ant colonies. Ants use pheromones to increase the efficiency
of foraging. For example, ants are moving randomly to find
food. After an ant finds a food source, it collects one piece of
the food, and goes back to its nest. While on its way back, it
spreads pheromones to communicate the location of the food
source with the other ones. The result is a pheromone trail
that leads to the food source. Thus, if other food searching
ants get into this pheromone trail, they stop the random
searching and follow this trail to get to the food source.
Therefore, the pheromone trail is an indirect communication
method between the ants. This type of communication is
termed stigmergy [1]. Without this pheromone trail the
running behavior of the ants would be always random.
Consequently, the efficiency of the foraging should increase. Figure 1. Ant mill.

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 In this paper, we propose a pheromone-based search with food source has a given nutritive value. The nutritive value
ant mill prevention algorithm for robot swarms. With this tells how many pieces a food source has that can be taken by
algorithm we solve the ant-mill problem. We compare this the ants. Therefore, a food source is reduced each time an ant
with two search algorithms: random walk and a pheromone- visits it.
based search algorithm. We use these algorithms to simulate
agents, called ants, that are randomly walking to find food.
We compare them by average age and food delivery of the
ants to find out which search algorithm is more efficient. For
our knowledge there is no pheromone-based search
algorithm that treats or tries to solve the ant mill problem.
In the following Section we first describe the related
work. Among them are also works that deal with the tracking
accuracy of ants or the probability of finding food. Next, we
propose the problem statement. In Section IV we present the
search algorithms: random walk, pheromone-based search
algorithm, and the pheromone-based search algorithm with
ant mill prevention. In Section V we present first the
simulation environment Swarm-Sim and all the necessary
simulator set-ups. Next, the metrics that are necessary for the
evaluation. Last but not least, in Subsection V-D we describe
the results of the simulation. The last Section belongs for the
conclusion and future works. We also consider new
questions regarding the simplifications of the ant algorithm
as well as areas that we have not yet considered with our
simulation. Figure 2. Ants in area with a food source and a nest%.

II. RELATED WORK

In the following Section we look at existing work of
different ant algorithms and their use cases. In addition, we
selected works that deal with the finding of food and the
formation of ant mills.
The first ant algorithm is documented at ―Distributed op-
timization by ant colonies‖ [6] in 1991 and they try to find a
heuristic to solve the travelling salesman problem (TSP).
Another work by Couzin [7] focuses on lane formation. Both
works set simulated ants on existing trails and analyze their
movement. Couzin tries to understand in which situation ant
mills are built in respect to the strength of following a trail.
Additionally, Couzin compares the movement of simulated
ants with real ones taken by video camera. In [8] the author
handles the probability of finding a single food location. He
adds aspects like ant speed depending on the age of an ant. Figure 3. Triangular grid and its coordinates.
The result is that ants with a higher age have a bigger range In this paper, we present a pheromone-based search
for finding food. The author in [9] uses desert ants. The algorithm for an efficient food delivery with the focus on
sandy surface of the desert removes pheromone marks very average age of each ant. In this chapter we describe in detail
fast and the desert ants use their eyes and brain primarily to all the above mentioned points for the problem statements.
re-find a location. They can remember a small number of
routes next to a location. A. World
None of the above mention works tries to solve the ant The world in this paper is a triangular grid. This grid con-
mill problem on its own. In contrast, in our work we added a sists of a defined amount of locations. Food and pheromones
kind of traffic control to the ant algorithm, so that the ants can only position on those locations. The food is placed
can still orient themselves on pheromone trails and to randomly on these locations. This triangular grid is placed on
overcome arising ant mills. a normal (x; y) coordinate system. If we talk about distance,
III. PROBLEM STATEMENT we use the term hop, that is the distance between each
location point on the triangular grid. Additionally, on a
Given is a world with several ants, food sources, and a triangular grid an ant can only move in six directions. For
nest as shown in Fig. 2. All the ants start from their nest and example, Fig. 3 shows a triangular grid and its coordinates. If
walk randomly to find food. The aim is for the ants to find
food sources and deliver pieces of it to their nest. Thus, each

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the ant starts at (0; 0), it can make a step to ( 1:0; 0:0), (1:0;
0:0), ( 0:5; 1:0), ( 0:5; 1:0), (0:5; 1:0) or (0:5; 1:0).
B. Ants
Our virtual ants are searching for food to survive and to
live. They are starting from their nest and walk randomly
until they find food. Each ant has an age and a hunger level.
Both values start with 0 and increases after each simulation
round. The ant age tells us how long an ant is living and is
useful for the evaluation. However, the hunger level
influences the ants’ mortality. Cause, each ant has a hunger
limit. If this is reached without finding any food, the ant dies.
However, if it finds food, it is fed (the hunger level stays 0)
until it reaches its nest and goes back to search food. Another
ability of the ants is that they remember all the directions
where they are going to find their way back to their nest.
Depending which kind of searching algorithm they are using,
they are equipped with pheromones.
C. Food
Ants are searching for food to survive. However, the ant
cannot take all the food source on its own. Thus, the food
sources consist of many small pieces that can be carried by
an ant. The total sum of pieces we termed as nutritive value.
Thus, if an ant reaches the food, the nutritive value is
decremented by one piece and if the nutritive value becomes
zero, the food source is vanished.
D. Pheromones
Pheromones are used by the ants to communicate indi-
rectly the direction to the food source with other ants. These
pheromones are generated by ants when they find food and
run back to their nest. However, the nature is not keeping the
pheromones forever. Therefore, each spread pheromone
starts with a potency value. The potency value decreases
with a given evaporation rate. If the potency of the
pheromone reached to zero, the pheromone does not exist
anymore. As a result, the ants cannot use it anymore.
E. Nest
The nest is starting and end point for the ants. It is the
place from where the ants start to search for food. After they
found food, they will take a piece of it and go back to their
nest. After they reached the nest and delivered the food, they
start again to search for food.
Now that the problem statement with its given points are
define. Next, we describe three methods for solving this
problem.
IV. METHODOLOGY
In this Section we describe the search algorithm for find-
ing food and additionally the direction decision scoring. We
introduce first a simple random walk search algorithm. Next,
we present the pheromone-based search algorithm and last
the pheromone-based ant mill prevention search algorithm.
At the end we show how the ants direction decision scoring.
The ants use this scoring to decide in which direction they
should go, if they are facing many adjacent pheromones or
food sources.
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A. Random Walk Search Algorithm (RW)
In the random walk search algorithm, the ants start from
their nest and move randomly in any direction until they find
food. When they find food, they will go back the same path
from where they came from. Thus, it must be mentioned, that
while the ants are searching for food, they remember after
each movement the direction from where they came from.
The ants use this memory to find their way back to their nest.
B. Pheromone-Based Search Algorithm (PSA)
The pheromone-based search algorithm (PSA) is a
modifi-cation of the random walk search. Basically, the ants
are going out from their nest, walking randomly to find food.
When an ant finds food, it will take one piece of the food,
and go back to its nest. On the way back, it is spreading
pheromones to help other ants to find the path to the food
source, too. The PSA comes with different modes that we
describe as follow. Search-Mode: When the ants are leaving
the nest, they are in search mode to find food. In the
searching-mode ants walk randomly until they find a food
source or pheromone path. If an ant that is in ―Search-Mode‖
encounters a single pheromone trail it follows the trail until it
reaches the food source. If more than one pheromone trail is
encountered, the ant does a scoring for choosing the
pheromone trail to follow. Nest-Mode: If an ant encounters a
food source, it takes one piece of the food, runs with it
directly to its nest, and places a pheromone trail. This trail
depends on the nutritional value of the food source.
Pheromone-Mode: If an search-mode ant reaches a
pheromone, it will changes to pheromone-mode. With the
pheromone-mode the ant is following the pheromone trail
until it reaches food. Then it will change to nest-mode.
Based on those mode the pheromone-based search
algorithm works. However, the use of the pheromones brings
the problem of the ant mill. With the increase of ants, food
sources, and the number of pheromones trails this algorithm
will create many small ant mills that we aim to resolve in this
paper and which we present next.
C. Pheromone-Based Search Algorithm with Ant Mill
Preven-tion (PSAMP)
Ideally, a pheromone trail should be the way between
food and nest because an ant places this trail exactly like that.
However, due to the world size if many pheromone trails are
spread parallel nearby the food source and there is an
increase of ants, the trails overlap and cause a circle trail
termed ant mill. This result of ants ―misbehavior‖ that they
run in a circle without reaching ever the food. The
Pheromone-Based Search Algorithm with Ant Mill
Prevention (PSAMP) is a modification of the PSA that works
as follows. An ant cannot recognize an ant mill, but it can see
how many adjacent ants are in its surroundings. As a result,
an ant should avoid ant groups to create or prevent ant mills.
We have therefore triggered an escape behavior. If an ant
recognize that it has more than three ants in its surroundings,
it will move to another direction to escape the ant mill or to
be in a group. This behavior is straight forward, the ant
randomly selects a direction and stops after a number escape
steps. The PSAMP pseudo code is shown in Algorithm 1 in exactly in front of it. After moving to this location, it also
detail. increases then the potency of the pheromone. In this example
the pheromone potency is not in percentage and the ant
Algorithm 1 Pseudo code of PSAMP increases the pheromone potency by 0.1. However, the
1: procedure PSAMP scoring is different when an ant has adjacent food sources,
2: Scan the environment too.
3: if I found food and going back to nest then In Fig. 5(a) we see an ant surrounded by one pheromone
4: if I am at the nest then
location and three food sources with different nutritive
5: Put food on the nest and go searching for food
6: else if I am on a pheromone position then
values. The ant scans all the six adjacent locations and check
7: Fill up the potency of the pheromone what is located at each adjacent location. However, in our
8: else if I am on a non pheromone location then example there are many food locations. So the proceeding of
9: Create pheromone the weighting is different as we can see in Fig. 5(b). The ant
10: end if weights all the food locations with the factor 10 and the rest
11: Move forward to reach the nest the way we described earlier. As a result, the ant neglects the
12: else if Searching for food then pheromone trail and select randomly one of the food
13: if I have still escape steps left then locations. Next, the ant goes to the random chosen food
14: Choose a random direction
15: Go to this direction
source (Fig. 5(c)) and takes one piece from the food source
16: else if I am on food then (Fig. 5(d)). The ant now switches to nest mode, orientates
17: Take food itself towards the nest, takes a step forward to a free location,
18: Go to the nest and spreads its pheromone (Fig. 5(e)). While the ant is going
19: else if Are more than three ants around me then back to its nest the hunger level of the ant is set to zero until
20: Reactive your escape steps it goes back to search mode.
21: Choose randomly a free location
22: Go to this direction V. EVALUATION
23: else if Are only pheromones around me? then
24: Make the direction scoring In this Section we first present the simulator Swarm-Sim,
25: Go to the pheromone with the biggest scoring which we use for evaluation. We provide a description of the
26: Fill up the pheromone parts of our simulation and how it works. Next, the initial set
27: else if Are food sources around me then ups of the simulator are presented and metrics are described
28: Choose randomly one of the food sources as well as parameters that we vary for the evaluation. Last,
29: Go to this direction we present the results and explain them.
30: else
31: Choose randomly a direction A. Simulator: Swarm-Sim
32: Go to this direction
33: end if
For simulation we use the round-based simulator Swarm-
34: end if Sim. Swarm-Sim is a 2D/3D swarm simulator [10]
35: end procedure developed at the Heinrich Heine University in
Düsseldorf/Germany. Swarm-Sim is written in Python. It
provides a simulation core to develop and evaluate in a
D. Direction Scoring simple way algorithm for swarms. The simulator is open
After the ants found food, they go back to their nest and source and can be downloaded from [11].
on their way, they are spreading pheromones. However, if a B. Simulation Setup
searching ant has many adjacent pheromones trail, how does
it decide which one to choose? The answer is that the We simulate the three search algorithms 10 times. Each
direction decision happens with a direction scoring, that we simulation starts with a different seed number. The seed
present in this chapter. In Figure 4(a) we see an ant that is number causes that the food source location and nutritive
neighboring two fields of pheromones. The ant now scores value changes. Hence, the ants are moving randomly, the
them to decide which one to choose. This is done with a direction decision of them changes, too. For the evaluation, a
weight factor. These are factors defined by us, which reflect Swarm-Sim world with 30 ants, 16 food source location, and
the characteristics of the sensory system and the ant’s a nest for the ants are given. The ants hunger limit is set to
willingness to make special decisions. For example, in Fig. 50 rounds. So, if an ant reaches this limitation without
4(b) we see the directions with a weight factor. The direction finding a food source, it dies, reborn, and starts to search
in which the ant is looking has the weight factor 3:0, to the again. 16 food sources are randomly located. Each food
left or to the right has a factor of 2:0, going back to the source becomes a nutritive value between 1-20 pieces, that
previous location 0:0, and all others 1:0. are randomly chosen by the simulator. The pheromones
Now for deciding the direction the pheromone potency potency is at the beginning 100% and the standard
must be multiplied the direction weight factor. This we can evaporation rate is set to 4%. The simulator runs for
see in Fig. 4(c)). For each location, the pheromones potency maximum 1000 rounds. That means, each search algorithm
is multiplied by its own weight factor. The location with the will be called for 1000 times, before the simulator terminates.
highest scoring is the one the ant decides to go. In Figure 4(d) The summary of the setup is as follow:
we see that the ant decides to go to the location that is  Maximal round numbers: 1000 rounds

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  Seed values: 1-10
 Food sources: 16 food locations
 Nutritive value: 1-20 pieces 30 Ants
 Ants Hunger Limit: 50 rounds
 Pheromones potency: 100%
 Pheromones evaporation rate: 4%
C. Metrics
For a simulation it is important to define the metrics.
With the metrics we can see how efficient and successful the
algorithms are. We use the following metrics for the
evaluation.
 Rounds: We uses Rounds to tell how many times
the search algorithm has been called. For each
calling a movement for each ant is happening.
Hence, Swarm-Sim is a round-based simulator the
time unit is round.
 Food Delivery: The total amount in percentage of
food pieces that the ants have taken from the food
source and delivered to their nest. While this is
happening the ants hunger level is set to zero and
hunger level counting stops. The counting starts
again after the ant delivered the food. A high food
delivery brings, consequently, a higher age. The
food delivery is an indication of the success of the
search algorithm. How evenly the task of collecting
food is distributed in the ant colony can be
determined by this value, too.
 Average Age: The average age is the sum of the
ages all the current living ants over the amount of
current living ant. The unit is rounds. As described
earlier the ants start with the age 0 and it has
nothing to do with their death. They only die of
starvation and not of age. By considering the
Figure 4. Pheromone scoring.
Figure 5. Food scoring.
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average age we want to have a metric that is
influenced by the food delivery, irrespective of the
quantity and accessibility of the food sources and
additionally to the number of simulated ants. A high
average age of ants indicates how well the ant
colony found and delivered food.
 Deaths: With this metric we show how many ants
died through the simulation. More dead ants mean
that the efficiency of the search algorithm is low. In
combination with the next shown metric (Death
distance steps) it allows us to find more information
about the ant mills.
 Death Distance Steps: The death distance steps
means how far an ant covers before it dies. That
means the simulator stores each time the location of
the ant. After an ant’s death, the simulator estimates
the distance between the ant’s death location and
the stored location. For example, after that an ant
died at round r, the simulator calculates the distance
between the death location and the location stored at
r-10 rounds. The death distance steps are an
indicator of mass mortality in a small area (ant mill)
or on a trail where there is no more food at the end.
In Subsection V-D we go into more detail.
 Evaporation Rate: Additionally, in our
measurements we varied the evaporation rate of the
pheromones. The evaporation rate is used to reduce
the pheromone potency after each round. With the
different evaporation rates, we like to see how the
average age of each search algorithm changes and
to see if they become the same if the evaporation
rate is 100%, which means no pheromones.

D. Results
In this Section we first describe the evaluation results of
the three search algorithms, compare them and clarify their
connections with a view for solving the ant mill problem. For
all the results the ants age and hunger level are set to 0 and
after each round they increase by 1. When a food source is
found the hunger level counter stops. The hunger limit is set
to 50 rounds. If not mentioned the evaporation rate of the
pheromones is 4%. The simulation terminates after round
1000.
1) Age Comparison: The average age tells us if the
ants are good in searching and food delivery. Figure 6
illustrates for each search algorithm the ants average age
over the entire simulation time. At the beginning, the average
age for all the three algorithms are equally rising. After
round 50 there is a sudden fall of the average age. This is
because the hunger limit is reached, and they died because of
starvation. However, from here this round onward the
comparison of the three algorithms can be seen, because the
living ants have found food. It is interesting to know the
reason why from this round 50 onward the difference occurs.
This we explain for each algorithm. First, for RW the
average age increases from 24 to 60 rounds between time 50
and 100. From here onward and till the end of the simulation
the average age fluctuates between 40 and 60 rounds.
However, the fluctuation is not even because of the
randomness nature of the RW.
Next, for PSA we see a rapid increase of the average age
till 120 rounds. More ants found food and the ages are higher
than the starting value. However, suddenly the average age
decreases to almost 30 rounds. The reason for this
occurrence is that the appearance of ant mills. Most of the
food sources have been found and thus more pheromones are
spread. As a result, ant mills are developed, causes that the
ants are starving, and the average age decreases suddenly.
This happens until round 350. From here the average age
fluctuate between 20 and 30 rounds through the entire
simulation. The reason is that the nest is full of pheromones
trail that brings the ants to ant mills. Thus, the death rate and
the new reborn rate of the ants become constant and thus for
a constant fluctuation of the average age.
Finally, the average age of the ants that are using PSAMP
seems at the first glance to be better compared to the others.
The ants age increases, like PSA, rapidly at the beginning.
However, it is not decreasing suddenly. The average age
starts to vary between 70 and 90 rounds. Thus, this shows the
effect of the ant mill prevention if we compare PSAMP with
PSA. Nevertheless, after round 650 the average age
decreases and becomes close to RW. The reason is that all
the food sources have been found and the pheromones trail
towards them are established. As a result, the ants are
preventing the ant mills by escaping, choosing randomly new
directions rather to deliver food. Thus, they average age of
PSAMP becomes equally to RW.
2) Efficiency Comparison: The food delivery tells us
how efficient the three search algorithms are. Fig. 7 shows
the food delivery in percentage. At the first glance, we see
after round 250 that the food delivery for PSA becomes
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constant. Even if there are still food sources left, the food
delivery is not increasing anymore. Thus, it indicates that
there is no food delivery anymore. Here we can see the effect
of the ant mill to PSA. This is because around the nest only
pheromones trails to ant mills have accumulated. As a result,
the ants are going into the ant mills, being trapped, and not
delivering food. For PSAMP and RW, however, food
delivery is continuously increasing. But the PSAMP results
with a higher food delivery which means that PSAMP is the
most efficient algorithm
3) Death Distance Steps: Next, we take a look at
Figures 8, 9, and 10 to get more background information
about the dying ants. These graphs show the results with
three different evaporation rates. In these graphs the values
for the random walk search algorithm are identical because it
works without pheromones and therefore it cannot be
influenced by the evaporation rate.
As already shown in Section V-C, the graphs show which
distance an ant covered shortly before it died. Since ant mills
and trails to finished food sources are characterized by the
fact that they cover a particularly short or long distance, they
can be seen by the peaks in the graph, because in those cases
the ants do not find any food (especial in ant mills). In these
three plots we have those peaks in the PSA and in our
PSAMP. However, in RW they do not occur because the ant
mill cannot occur with the random-walk search algorithm.
Thus, this curve serves as a good comparison of how such a
graph should look without ant mills. What we can also see in
these three plots is that the number of dead ants (especially
the height of the peaks) decreases with higher evaporation.
Let’s look at Figure 9. These high death rate peaks
characterize the ant mills and high frequented pheromone
trails that are leading to vanished food sources. The peaks on
a distance 1 and 2 are ant mills. These ants covered a
distance of only 1 or 2 for the last 10 steps before dying. The
other high peaks at distance 7 and 9 are coursed of trails to
vanished food sources. Before the ants’ fateful death, they
run straight forward for the last 10 steps. None of the
algorithm have a high effect on these ant behaviors. Thus,
the ant mill is not the only problem. Pheromone trails to
vanished food causes death, too. Thus, a solution is that trails
to gone food sources should evaporate after 25 rounds (4%
evaporation) thus no problem as dying ants in the first 25
rounds to not leave pheromones.
4) The Effect of Different Evaporation Rate: Finally,
let us look at Figure 11 to examine the aspect of different
evaporation rate. In this graph, the total average age of the
ant colony is shown with different evaporation. The value for
RW is not changing, hence it is independent of the
evaporation rate. However, the values for PSAMP and PSA
changes, because the effect of the pheromone trail
evaporation has an effect of the ant’s movement and age.
Starting with an evaporation rate of 0% PSAMP starts with a
higher average rate compared to the other ones. This is the
result of the ant mill prevention.
 Figure 6. Average age with an evaporation of 4%.
Figure 8. Evaporation rate of 2%.
Figure 10. Evaporation rate of 6%.
However, the average age PSAMP starts to decrease the
higher the evaporation rate becomes. This continuous until it
becomes almost the same as RW. This is because of the
PSAMP escape function that tells the ants to move in a
random direction for certain steps. Hence, the pheromone
trails evaporate faster the more ants with PSAMP are moving
in a random walk. Additionally, if they see other ants’ groups
they will try to escape, too. That is the reason why at the end
PSAMP behaves like RW. In comparison, the PSA average
age becomes with an evaporation rate of 40% the highest.
This is because PSA is not using the prevention ant mill and
thus the ants are using any pheromone trail, independent if it
is an ant mill or not. Additionally, the ant mills break,
because of the fast evaporation rate. As a result, the PSA ants
are using any pheromone trail and becomes faster to food
delivery compared to PSAMP. Nevertheless, for PSA the
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Figure 7. Carried food with an evaporation of 4%.
Figure 9. Evaporation rate of 4%.
Figure 11. Average ant age in relation to evaporation.
same effect as PSAMP happens i.e. the higher the
evaporation rate becomes, PSA turns to be like RW.
V. CONCLUSION & FUTURE WORK
In this paper, we investigate the occurrence and resolving
of ant mill issues in ant-based algorithms. We simulate ants
that are searching for food and deliver food pieces to their
nest. We compare three types of search algorithms: Random
Walk (RM), Pheromone-Based (PSA), and Pheromone-
Based with ant mill Prevention (PSAMP). First, we show
that a modification of the random walk search with
pheromones turns to be inefficient. The reason is that a
pheromones-based search algorithm causes ant mills which
makes the modification inefficient. As a result, we develop a
pheromone-based search algorithm with ant mill prevention
(PSAMP). Our PSAMP is a solution to prevent ant mills and
makes collecting food in a swarm more successful. We show
that PSAMP reduces the rate of death ants, increases the ants
average age and food delivery efficiency. However, by
increasing the evaporation rate, PSAMP becomes more
inefficient compare to PSA. Additionally, with evaporation
rate close to 100% both PSA and PSAMP acts like RW,
because the pheromones are disappearing much faster.
However, our algorithm does not generate a certain
number of ant mills by direct influence and cannot detect ant
mill on its own. For example, the PSA is not able to detect a
trail to the food but reacts only to a few pheromone strengths
in the immediate vicinity. The PSAMP does not recognize
ant mills but reacts only to the ant density. The reason why a
pheromone-based search algorithm can solve a task, such as
finding tracks or avoiding possible ant mills, lies in the
swarm behavior. Collectively a task is solved in the swarm
and not each individual separately. For example, with a
strong evaporation of pheromones, a single ant may no
longer find its self-laid trail to the food source. Only other
ants in contact with this trail reinforce it for such a long time
that a complete connection between nest and food can be
maintained. The above-mentioned points are some future
works. Additionally, other types of search and stigmergy
algorithm from animals’ nature, e.g. of bees (see [12], [13])
can be developed and compared with PSA and PSAMP.
Nevertheless, we consider only normal ants, nature has many
other types of ants. For example, the army ants. Their nest in
nature is moved by the army ant and produces a new breed.
In addition, it would be interested to know how to manage
and prevent misbehavior of ants in the swarm through
different ―behavior anomalies of single individuals‖? Our
findings on secure ant algorithms in [3], [14], [15] can be
further used to analyze the problem of the emergence of the
ant mills. Interesting is to add a direct communication with
the pheromones and to see the new results [16]. Another
example, ants’ movement patterns could be like a breath or
depth-first search [17]. Further, how about if they could
smell the food without knowing from where the smell is
coming from like the phototactic movement in [18]. Last but
not least, the ants move like a flock [19] and coat the food
source from each side [20] to transport it together away.
Additionally, the ant queens searches for food, scans the
food source, and brings all the other ants to coat the food
source [21].
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank the Arab-German Young
Academy of Sciences and Humanities for funding this
research as well as our collaboration partner Dr. Ahmed
Khalil for the valuable discussions on future nanorobot
technologies.
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