Overview

Swarm intelligence focuses on how simple individual agents following local rules can produce complex, intelligent global behavior without any central control.

Key Algorithms

  • Ant Colony Optimization (ACO): Inspired by how ants find the shortest path to food using pheromones.
  • Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO): Inspired by the social behavior of bird flocking or fish schooling.

Characteristics

  • Scalability: Works well with a few agents or thousands.
  • Robustness: The system continues to function even if individual agents fail.
  • Adaptability: Can quickly respond to changes in the environment.

Applications

  • Robotics (swarm robotics).
  • Network routing.
  • Optimization of complex functions.

Related Terms