Borrowing from Ants: Algorithms for Emergency Evacuations
Presenter: Robert Heckendorn, Assoc. Professor of Computer Science, University of Idaho
Abstract:
Ants are not just a pile of insects. They work in a coordinated
fashion to solve problems. How is this possible? Can we use
some of the techniques that ants use to solve problems of
coordination between thousands of independent actors? We examine
the problem of the evacuation of urban areas as a model problem.
We speculate on the use of ant based algorithms as a way
to efficiently and adaptively evacuate urban areas in times of
natural or man-made disasters.