Madden2010 PDF
Madden2010 PDF
I. INTRODUCTION
As part of a project for the Office of Naval Research,
models of behavior from biology are being used to develop
heterogeneous unmanned network teams (HUNT) of robots.
An earlier study in this project used lekking behavior from
prairie chickens to develop a basis for structuring groups of
robots [1]. The results of the lekking study were used as a
starting point for the current study with wolves. Our group
includes a biologist (D.R. MacNulty), who specializes in
This work was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research under
MURI Grant # N00014-08-1-0696.
J.D. Madden and R.C. Arkin are with the Mobile Robot Laboratory,
College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology, 85 5th ST NW,
Atlanta, GA, 30332. email {jmadden,arkin}@gatech.edu
D.R. MacNulty is with the Department of Ecology, Evolution, &
Behavior University of Minnesota, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul,
MN, 55108. email: [email protected]
A. Individual Properties
Wolves are able to consume a variety of prey from mice
to moose because of their generalized skull morphology.
And the apparent lack of coordination could be an advantage
in that it allows wolves to hunt over a range of conditions
irrespective of any requirement to coordinate. They use a
few basic heuristics (rules of thumb), e.g., attack while
minimizing the risk of injury with no overall hard behavioral
constraints on actions [4]. This makes their behavior very
flexible and allows them to quickly and easily make the
transition between different species of prey, such as elk in
the summer and bison in winter when elk migrate. One
observation in Yellowstone National Park, involved a pack
of wolves that had been hunting bison, moved into a new
valley, and immediately started hunting elk. This serves as a
testament to the adaptability of wolf hunting behavior, and a
powerful clue regarding their success in such varied
environments.
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TABLE 1
Foraging States for Wolf Hunting Behavior
Foraging State
Description
Search
Approach
Attack Group
Attack Individual
Capture
When a hunt is initiated, the wolf pack heads out from its
den or resting site and begins searching for prey. Hunger
motivates the initiation of a hunt [8]. What direction the
wolves go and to what extent they are willing to travel are
dependent on their experience of prior successes and
failures. As they search they make use of their strong senses,
using the wide range of their lateral vision and their movable
ears, to scan the landscape for potential prey. Once prey has
been located, they start approaching.
Assuming that that the pack has located a relatively
stationary herd of elk, the wolves approach at moderate
speed. In general, wolves do not sneak up on their prey, nor
do they target a specific individual from the herd until after
the herd begins running. Species that use this approach
strategy are known as cursorial predators and it is the
principal difference separating their hunting behavior from
that of other large predators such as lions [6]. In response to
approaching wolves elk will either stand their ground or to
run away. Elk most commonly run away which usually leads
to the attack group state.
As the prey quarry run away, they split up into groups
headed in different directions and the wolves must also split
up to follow as many as they can. During this stage of the
hunt the wolves are scanning through the groups of prey,
trying to locate the weakest individual that will provide the
best opportunity for a kill. An advantage of running the
animals to exhaustion is that it creates opportunities for the
prey animals to make a fatal mistake (i.e., tripping). It also
provides a useful test of performance by which the wolves
can evaluate which animal is the weakest [8]. When a weak
animal is detected by a wolf, that wolf then transitions to the
attack individual state.
The attack individual state is characterized by
intensified pursuit and greater focus on the targeted prey
individual. Other wolves may see the pursuit of this wolf
and join in, but that is not necessarily the case. Coordination
of multiple wolves (or lack thereof) is discussed in the next
section. The goal of this behavioral state is for the wolf to
get close enough to the prey to begin biting it in an attempt
to bring it down. Whether it is a single wolf or a number of
wolves, biting the prey signifies a transition to the capture
state.
The ultimate goal of the capture state is killing the prey.
If the prey animal is small (i.e., a calf) the first wolf may
attack the throat directly since it can easily handle the animal
by itself. If the prey is larger and there are many wolves,
they will often bite at the hind legs and rump attempting to
slow their prey down before grabbing the neck. This project
is not concerned with the mechanics of how wolves bring
down prey but it is important to note that there are
differences in attacking different prey. If the prey truly was a
weak individual, the wolves will most likely complete a
successful kill, but if they had misperceived a strong animal
as weak, they may fail and either give up on the hunt or
transition back to an earlier state.
The narrative of a hunt that has just been related gives a
general idea of how many specific individual hunts progress
through these foraging states; however, it is often not this
clear cut. Many other transitions are possible aside from the
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unaware that they need the others to help them take down
the large prey because this is most often the case. It may not,
however, be required that wolves need help to take down
any of their usual prey. It is proposed that one of the biggest
reasons that large terrestrial predators do not use group
coordination is that they do not necessarily need it. Solitary
hunters have a high success rate, roughly 21% for most large
carnivores [MacNulty unpublished data].
Search
Approach
Watch
Attack
Group
Attack
Individual
Capture
Search
Approach
.00
.09
.68
.00
.00
.12
.31
.69
.01
.09
.00
.01
Watch
.32
.35
.00
.27
.06
.00
.24
.09
.03
.13
.51
.00
.16
.06
.02
.16
.08
.52
Attack
Group
Attack
Individual
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Figure 3. Finite State Acceptor for Wolf behavvior with five foraging state (watch state removed) as well as initial and final states for
experimentation purposes. The stop states con
nnected to each foraging state are dummy states to facilitatte the probabilistic trigger.
TABLE 3
List of Releasers and Transitioons
Releaser
Transitions poossible
Prey Found
S A, G, I
Prey Lost
A, G, I, C S
Multiple Prey
S, A, I, C G
Prey Running
A G, I
Prey Stopped
G, I A ; A, I C
GI
Prey Close
G, I C
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TABLE 4
Results From Wolf Siimulations
One Wolf and One Elk (Stop)
Preceding
State
Search
Approach
Attack
Group
Attack
Individual
Search
-.00
Follow
wing State
Attack
Approach Atttack
Grroup Individual
.05
.95
.00
.88
-.00
Capture
.00
.12
.00
.00
.00
.00
.00
.08
.12
.00
.15
.67
Search
-.07
wing State
Follow
Attack
Approach Atttack
Grroup Individual
.00
1.00
.00
.93
-.00
Figure 6. Transitions for one wolf hunting one elk with behavior set to
run away from wolf. Random behavior of wolf seaarch can also be seen
previous to transition to approach.
.00
.00
.00
.00
.07
.21
.00
.23
.49
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Capture
.00
.00
.07
.26
.13
.54
.00
.09
.15
.22
.13
.41
Result of hunt
Discover elk together, kill same elk
Discover elk together, kill different elk
Discover elk separately, kill same elk
Discover elk separately, kill different elk
Figure 7. Close-up showing transitions for one woolf hunting three elk
with behavior set to run away from wolf.
.00
.00
.00
Capture
Runs
4
9
3
4
%
20
45
15
20
w
and three elk. The
The final scenario involved two wolves
purpose of this scenario was to examine how multiple
wolves react to multiple prey. Th
he wolves were given a
slight attraction to one another thro
ough the move-to-object
behavior to simulate actual hunts wh
here the wolves generally
start relatively together. This behaviior made the discovery of
prey with the wolves together mo
ore common. When the
wolves came across the prey togetheer, they most often killed
different prey individuals. This maay have been due to the
confined space of the map alllowing the capture of
individuals they may have otherwisee been lost and forced the
pursuer to join their pack memberr. When they discovered
the prey separately the results were split for killing the same
or different individuals.
VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
O
V. DISCUSSION OF RESULTTS
Many of the resulting probabilities of traansitions from the
first scenario vary from the observed probabbilities because in
this scenario the prey would never run awaay whereas in the
wild, running is the most common reactiion for the prey.
Comparison of the resulting transition probbabilities from the
first and second scenarios show that by chhanging the prey
behavior from stopping when approacheed by a wolf to
running away, the change in transitions iss most notable in
the transitions leading to attack. The first annd third scenarios
show similar differences for the same reason. Comparison of
the second and third scenario reveals thatt adding multiple
elk to the hunt has a large effect on the trransitions for the
obvious reason that the attack group state iss only possible in
the third scenario where there are multiplee elk. This is the
most realistic scenario as the vast m
majority of the
observations in YNP were wolves hunting multiple elk. For
this reason, the results from only the thhird scenario are
compared to the observed data. The probabilities of
transitions were similar to those in the obbserved data with
the error for the primary four transitionns (SA, AG,
GI, IC) at 5%, 6%, 3%, and 11% respectively. Some
transitions showed higher errors. Simulatioon results showed
much lower probabilities for all transitionns leading to the
search state. This is most likely due to the hunts being
confined within boundaries that often afffected the elks
attempts to run away.
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where:
= Probability of transitioning from the
current state to Staten
= Input probability of the above transition
.7
Enemy
.4
.5
10
4
m
m
.8
Enemy
.3
.3
10
4
m
m
1
Enemy
.1
.3
10
4
m
m
.1
Enemy
0
.1
1.5
.5
m
m
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
Parameter
Wolf search assemblage
Move to object gain
Selected object
Wander gain
Secondary wander gain
Avoid obstacle gain
Avoid obstacle sphere
Avoid obstacle safety margin
Value
.2
Friendly
.7
.3
.5
10
4
Units
[10]
[11]
[12]
m
m
[13]
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