Virtual insect modelling system

Exhibitor: Alexander Tan

Supervisor: David Carrington

Research Group: Complex and Intelligent Systems

Industry Sector: Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

Figure: The diagram above shows the 2D plant environment. The model is of an insect with energy levels. The insect can detect leaf (dark green), petiole (medium green), stem (light green) or ground squares (black). The insect has to eat when it is hungry. If it can't find food, it will die.

A "Virtual Insect Modelling System" has been developed to model insect behaviour through simulations based on a domain-specific insect language, which can be used to specify factors such as environmental stimuli. The system generates dynamic hierarchical structures using ANTLR (Another Tool for Language Recognition), which are used to represent a computational model of behaviour.

The development of the system has comprised the design of an insect language, which is used to specify model-descriptions. The system has been developed with the help of Prof. Myron Zalucki and Dr. Marie-Louise Johnson from the Department of Entomology, UQ, and aims to provide a method for accelerating the process of testing hypotheses of behaviour through the use of computational simulations.

The simulations have used a 2D plant environment that was developed in Java to test the model descriptions. Future work may involve integrating plant simulators, such as those based on Lindenmayer systems as part of the modelling framework.

Thesis Document (PDF)

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