A re-examination of the NetLogo Termites model

"A Re-examination of the NetLogo Termites model"

Doug Hoskins, The Boeing Company

The NetLogo "Termites" model project {in Models Library | Biology } is described on the information tab as:

This project is inspired by the behavior of termites gathering wood chips into piles. The termites follow a set of simple rules. Each termite starts wandering randomly. If it bumps into a wood chip, it picks the chip up, and continues to wander randomly. When it bumps into another wood chip, it finds a nearby empty space and puts its wood chip down. With these simple rules, the wood chips eventually end up in a single pile.

When running this simulation at slower than normal speed, we happened to notice that the generally moved in the random walk described, but would occasionally move with a sudden "burst" of speed in a straight line. This lead to a re-examination of the source code, and the identification of a number of model parameters that are not discussed in the model.

This project will consist of an analysis of the sensitivity of the stated qualitative results ("all the wood chips end up in one pile") to these undocumented parameters and search for an analytical explanation of the observed results.