Investigation of the uni- and bi-directional ant traffic flow by computer simulation

In this thesis, the uni- and bi-directional ant traffic flow in an ant trail was investigated by using one-dimesional cellular automata model. It was considered that ants communicate each other by dropping a chemical, called pheromone, on the substrate. Apart form the studies in the literature, it was considered in the model that a) ant colony consists of two kind of ants, good and poor smelling ones; b) ants might make U-turn for some special cases. For some values of densities of good- and poor-smelling ants, the flux and mean velocity of the colony were studied as a function of density and evaporation rate of pheromone. It was shown that phase transition occurs for some special values of parameters used in the model.Key Words: Ant-trail, Cellular Automata, Computer Simulation.