Other Engineering Commons^™

While swarms that execute decisions are well known in the swarm community, swarms that exhibit this capability a priori have never before been achieved. We demonstrate a methodology, based on the Hamiltonian method of swarm design, that enables the design and implementation of swarms that exhibit decision-making capability. We develop the theoretical structure of the method and apply it to the development of an ant algorithm and a swarm capable of deciding whether its density exceeds a specific predetermined value. The swarm designs are validated in simulation.