Gathering Agents on a Lattice by Coupling Reaction-Diffusion and Chemotaxis

Cet article décrit un algorithme bio-inspiré présentant un moyen de regrouper des agents de manière décentralisée. Ces agents sont initialement dispersés sur une grille, ils utilisent des mécanismes de communication locaux, qui simulent les mécanismes biologiques de réaction-diffusion et de chemotaxie. L'automate cellulaire qui simule l'environnement n'utilise que trois états pour le transfert d'i We address the question as to which are the minimal ingredients to obtain a decentralised gathering of agents that move on a lattice. The agents and their environment are described with a stochastic model inspired from biology: the aggregation of the {\em Dictyostelium discoideum} cellular slime mold. The environment is an active lattice, which cells transmit information according to a reaction-diffusion mechanism. The agents trigger excitations randomly; they move by following excitation fronts. We show that despite its simplicity this model exhibits interesting properties of self-organisation and allows to achieve decentralised gathering. Moreover, observations show that the system has interesting robustness properties, as being able to resist to the presence of obstacles on the lattice and to resist to the addition of noise on the moves on the agents.