The Fuzzy Ant

The design of artificial systems inspired by biological behavior is recently attracting considerable interest. Many biological agents such as plants or animals were forced to develop sophisticated mechanisms in order to tackle various problems they encounter in their habitat. For example, animals must develop efficient mechanisms for orienting themselves in space. Similar problems arise in the design of artificial systems. For example, planning and realizing oriented movements is a crucial problem in the design of autonomous robots. Thus, lessons from biological behavior may inspire suitable artificial designs. In some cases, ethologists provided verbal descriptions of the relevant animal behavior. Fuzzy modeling is the most suitable tool for transforming these verbal descriptions into mathematical models or computer algorithms that can be used in artificial systems. We demonstrate this by using fuzzy modeling to develop a mathematical model for the foraging behavior of ants. The behavior of the resulting mathematical model, as studied using both simulations and rigorous analysis, is congruent with the behavior actually observed in nature.