Orthogonality and optimality in non-pheromone mediated foraging

We describe the general foraging task, breaking it into two different subtasks: map-making and collection. Map-making is a task in which a map is constructed which contains the location(s) of an item or of items in the search area. Collection is the task in which an item is picked up and carried back to a central known location. We theoretically examine these tasks, generating minimal conditions for each one to be accomplished. We then build a swarm made up of two castes to accomplish this, theoretically motivating the design of the swarm. Finally, we demonstrate that the swarm is optimal in the class of swarms utilizing line of sight communication, and give performance measures for open and closed search spaces.