Preface: Swarm Intelligence, Focus on Ant and Particle Swarm Optimization

Abstract

Swarm Intelligence (SI) is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) discipline that studies the collective behaviours of artificial and natural systems such as those of insects or animals. SI is seen as a new concept of AI and is becoming increasingly accepted in the literature. SI techniques are typically inspired by natural phenomena, and they have exhibited remarkable capabilities in solving problems that are often perceived to be challenging to conventional computational techniques. Although an SI system lacks a centralized control, the system at the swarm (or population) level reveals remarkable complex and self-organizing behaviours, often as the result of local interactions among individuals in the swarm as well as individuals with the environment, based on very simple interaction rules.