Adaptive networks consist of spatially distributed agents that are linked together through a connection topology. The topology may vary with time and the agents may also move. The agents cooperate with each other through local interactions and by means of in-network processing. The diffusion of information across the network results in various forms of self-organizing behavior and collective intelligence. A key property of adaptive networks is that all agents behave in an isotropic manner and are assumed to have similar abilities. This kind of behavior is common in many socio-economic and life and biological networks where no single agent is in command.
Adaptive networks are well-suited to perform decentralized information processing and decentralized inference tasks. They are also well-suited to model self-organizing behavior such as animal flocking and swarming. This talk describes research results on distributed processing over adaptive networks and illustrates the techniques by studying self-organization in biological networks such as bird formations, fish schooling, bee swarming, and bacteria motility.