Do Ants Use Ant Colony Optimization?

Abstract

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a widespread optimization technique used to solve complex problems in a broad range of fields, including engineering, software development and logistics. It was inspired by the behaviour of ants which can collectively select the shorter of two paths leading to a food source. They are able to do so even without any single ant comparing the lengths of the two paths. Ants, like other eusocial insects, have no central authority to coordinate the sophisticated and complex work of their colony members. Coordination is achieved through self-organization, principles of which inspired the development of ACO algorithms. Here we discuss both the similarities and the considerable differences between the behaviour of real ant colonies and techniques used by ACO. We also describe some of the latest findings in ant research and how they may contribute to new ACO algorithms.