Jul 17, 2022 19:30:00

Simulator 'Ants Sandbox' where you can see the colony of ants fighting a severe survival war with a browser

Ants are known as social insects that form large herds while sharing roles between queen ants, worker ants, and soldier ants. The behavior of ants forming nests and forming a route to the feeding ground is a computational problem of an algorithm that applies

graph theory as an ' ant colony optimization problem '. ' Ants Sandbox ' that can actually simulate and look at such ant colony optimization has appeared.

Ants Sandbox
https://www.ants-sandbox.io/

When you access the Ants Sandbox, you will see the automatically generated map. If you look at 'Tour', you can get a detailed explanation about ant colony optimization, but this time I clicked 'Skip Tour' and skipped it.

The map can be zoomed in and out with the mouse wheel, and the viewpoint can be moved by dragging.

Colored circles such as red and yellow represent ant nests. If you look closely, small dots of the same color move in a row with Zoro Zoro, which means ants. And the green mass is the food for ants. This map is a maze of gray rocks, and the paths formed by ants that weave through the gaps in the rocks are carved in light colors.

For example, in the following locations, the red and blue ant colonies are relatively close. And there is a big feeding area on the upper left.

Of course, both red and blue ants aim at this large feeding area, so the route will be batting on the way. In this case, the red ants and the blue ants will start the battle. If you expand the batting point, you can see the red ants and the blue ants fighting and scattered on the spot.

You can check the number of ants in each colony by clicking 'Colonies' on the left menu.

You can also see the amount of food left and the total number and breakdown of ants.

In addition, you can set Aggressiveness, Mean ant energy, and Freedom for the movement of ants.

'Charts' graphs various data, so you can see the transition at a glance.

You can also create a new map by clicking 'New' on the left menu, setting conditions, and clicking 'New garden'. Changing the size, number of colonies, and terrain will change the route, so you can take a closer look at how the ants fight for the survival of the herd while making the route little by little.