All to all communication with cellular automata agents in 2$$d$$d grids: topologies, streets and performances
Solving the all to all communication task in the cyclic triangulate and square grids in shortest time with mobile agents was the objective of this work. In order to solve the problem, the multi agent system is modeled by cellular automata with synchronous updating and the agents' behavior by an embedded finite state machine (FSM) Agents can move or stay, and turn to any direction. An agent is able to leave a trace by setting a color flag on its site. Colors allow indirect communication similar to pheromones, speed up the task and contribute to a better reliability. More reliable agents are found using different initial control states for the agent's FSMs. A simple genetic procedure based on mutation is used to evolve near optimal FSMs for both grids. Agents in the triangulate grid can solve the task in around 2/3 of the time compared with the square grid. The communication time depends also on the density of agents in the field, e.g. agents with density 4/(16 \times $x 16) turned out to be the slowest.
The Journal of Supercomputing