Appeal 2007-1200
Application 09/900,251
3. Pumps deposit pheromones on a hexagonal grid and walkers sense those
pheromones to indirectly determine the locations of the pumps:
The present invention details a pheromone-based
coordination mechanism of agents on a hexagonal grid.
Agents of two species live in places on the grid: pumps
and walkers. Pumps regularly deposit pheromones at
their current place. Potentially, they are able to move
independently over the grid, but in this paper, we
consider static pumps only. The walkers seek to occupy
the same places as the pumps, but do not perceive them
directly or know the purpose of their movements.
Walkers are only permitted to sample pheromone
concentrations at their current place and their immediate
neighbors. They may not even communicate directly
among themselves.
(Specification 7:12-19).
4. “A pheromone system embodies two sets of dynamics: those of the
pheromones themselves, and those of the walkers, which move in
response to the pheromones.” (Specification 7:21-22).
5. The walker chooses its next place to move by first sampling the
concentration of pheromones at its location and adjacent locations. “At a
relocation moment t and located at an arbitrary place p, a walker selects
its next location probabilistically from the set (C(p)) of currently
available options.” (Specification 9:7-9). The Specification discloses the
mathematical relationships of the selection process, which are driven in
part by the concentration of pheromones and the relative attraction of the
respective locations from which the walker can choose (See, e.g.
Specification 9:14-24). Flow charts displaying the logic for a variety of
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