We introduce the concept of cognitive design pattern to provide a design methodology for distributed multi-agent systems. A cognitive design pattern is a reusable solution to tackle problems requiring cognitive abilities (e.g., decision-making, attention, categorisation). It provides theoretical models and design guidelines to define the individual control rules in order to obtain a desired behaviour for the multi-agent system as a whole. In this paper, we propose a cognitive design pattern for collective decision-making inspired by the nest-site selection behaviour of honeybee swarms. We illustrate how to apply the pattern to a case study involving spatial factors: the collective selection of the shortest path between two target areas. We analyse the dynamics of the multi-agent system and we show a very good agreement with the predictions of the macroscopic model.
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