Artificial Ants - Ambient Networks of Intelligent Objects

Ambient Networks of Intelligent Objects

New concepts are required since “intelligence” is no longer centralized but can be found throughout all minuscule objects. Anthropocentric concepts have always led us to the production of IT systems in which data processing, control units and calculating forces are centralized. These centralized units have continually increased their performance and can be compared to the human brain. The model of the brain has become the ultimate vision of computers. Ambient networks of intelligent objects and, sooner or later, a new generation of information systems which are even more diffused and based on nanotechnology, will profoundly change this concept. Small devices that can be compared to insects do not dispose of a high intelligence on their own. Indeed, their intelligence can be classed as fairly limited. It is, for example, impossible to integrate a high performance calculator with the power to solve any kind of mathematical problem into a biochip that is implanted into the human body or integrated in an intelligent tag which is designed to trace commercial articles. However, once those objects are interconnected they dispose of a form of intelligence that can be compared to a colony of ants or bees. In the case of certain problems, this type of intelligence can be superior to the reasoning of a centralized system similar to the brain.

Nature has given us several examples of how minuscule organisms, if they all follow the same basic rule, can create a form of collective intelligence on the macroscopic level. Colonies of social insects perfectly illustrate this model which greatly differs from human societies. This model is based on the co-operation of independent units with simple and unpredictable behavior. They move through their surrounding area to carry out certain tasks and only possess a very limited amount of information to do so. A colony of ants, for example, represents numerous qualities that can also be applied to a network of ambient objects. Colonies of ants have a very high capacity to adapt themselves to changes in the environment as well as an enormous strength in dealing with situations where one individual fails to carry out a given task. This kind of flexibility would also be very useful for mobile networks of objects which are perpetually developing. Parcels of information that move from a computer to a digital object behave in the same way as ants would do. They move through the network and pass from one knot to the next with the objective of arriving at their final destination as quickly as possible.