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Intuitive Modelling and Formal Analysis of Collective Behaviour in Foraging Ants

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Computational Methods in Systems Biology (CMSB 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNBI,volume 14137))

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Abstract

We demonstrate a novel methodology that integrates intuitive modelling, simulation, and formal verification of collective behaviour in biological systems. To that end, we consider the case of a colony of foraging ants, where, for the combined effect of known biological mechanisms such as stigmergic interaction, pheromone release, and path integration, the ants will progressively work out the shortest path to move back and forth between their nest and a hypothetical food repository. Starting from an informal description in natural language, we show how to devise intuitive specifications for such scenario in a formal language. We then make use of a prototype software tool to formally assess whether such specifications would indeed replicate the expected collective behaviour of the colony as a whole.

Work partially funded by MIUR project PRIN 2017FTXR7S IT MATTERS (Methods and Tools for Trustworthy Smart Systems), ERC consolidator grant no. 772459 D-SynMA (Distributed Synthesis: from Single to Multiple Agents), and PRO3 MUR project Software Quality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    SLiVER is available at https://github.com/labs-lang/sliver.

  2. 2.

    Notice that this is not the same as solving the formula under assumptions: if the instrumentation makes the formula unsatisfiable, we leave the solver free to drop part of it and resume its search.

  3. 3.

    Adding the attribute onFood is not strictly necessary, but makes for more readable specifications.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IMT School of Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy

    Rocco De Nicola & Serenella Valiani

  2. University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Luca Di Stefano

  3. Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L’Aquila, Italy

    Omar Inverso

Authors
  1. Rocco De Nicola
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  2. Luca Di Stefano
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  3. Omar Inverso
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  4. Serenella Valiani
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Correspondence to Serenella Valiani .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

    Jun Pang

  2. Inria Lille, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

    Joachim Niehren

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De Nicola, R., Di Stefano, L., Inverso, O., Valiani, S. (2023). Intuitive Modelling and Formal Analysis of Collective Behaviour in Foraging Ants. In: Pang, J., Niehren, J. (eds) Computational Methods in Systems Biology. CMSB 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 14137. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42697-1_4

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