Local information maximisation creates emergent flocking behavior

The three boids rules of alignment, separation and cohesion, introduced by Reynolds to recreate flocking behaviour have become a well known standard to create swarm behaviour. In this paper we want to demonstrate how similar flocking behaviour can be created by a local, agent based model, following a principle of information maximisation. The basis for our model is an extension of Vergassola’s infotaxis model, where agents determine their actions based on the highest expected reduction of entropy. We adapted this approach to a grid world-based search task, and extended the agents abilities so they could not only perform a Bayesian update with information gained from the environment, but also with information gained from other agents. The resulting global flocking behaviour is then analysed in regard to how well it resembles the basic boids rules.

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