Simulated Bacterially-Inspired Problem Solving – The Behavioural Domain

Bacterial populations meet the challenges of dynamic spatially heterogeneous environments with fluctuating biotic and abiotic factors in a number of ways. The motivation for the work presented here has been to transfer ideas from bacterial adaptability and evolvability to computational problem solving. Following a brief comment on some examples of the ways bacteria solve problems, a bacterially-inspired computational architecture for simulating aspects of problem solving is described. We then examine three case studies. The first, a study of the mutational impact of a remediation to toxic (fitness-reducing) material, highlights how a sufficiently pre-engineered adaptive system can solve a difficult problem quite easily. The second study looks at why it is difficult to evolve complex problem solving behaviours and how artificial selection mechanisms coupled with pre-engineering the system can help. Specifically, this refers to quorum sensing and tactic behaviours. A further study looked at ways in which a quorum sensing analogue could help computational agents find multiple peaks in a landscape. The paper concludes with a discussion of an investigation of bacteria that had both quorum sensing and tactic capabilities.