Swarm Intelligence

Abstract

        The behavior of social insects in general, and of ants living in colonies in particular, has fascinated researchers in ethology but also fascinated computer scientists. Many models have been proposed to explain their capabilities. 

        Swarm intelligence systems have been offered as a novel computational approach that replaces the traditional emphasis on control, preprogramming, and centralization with designs featuring autonomy, emergence, and distributed functioning. 

Stigmergy 

Stigmergy, the second concept of swarm intelligence, refers to the indirect interaction of individuals when one of them modifies the environment and the other responds to the new environment at a later time.  There is two classes of stigmergy

• ·              Quantitative stigmergy
• ·             Qualitative (discrete) stigmergy 

Charateristics Of Swarm

• ·       Distributed, no central control or data source;
• ·       No (explicit) model of the environment;
• ·       Perception of environment, I.e. sensing; 

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

        The benefits of swarm intelligence can work effectively to resolve current issues in MANETs, or mobile ad-hoc networks. A MANET is a collection of computers, or nodes, participating and cooperating in a computer network. MANETs are increasingly appearing now that wireless devices become more and more ubiquitous. Information is communicated between nodes via a wireless link. There is a limited communications range for each node, and each node has only a few neighbors. 

 Traveling Salesman

Swarm Intelligence has been applied to the classic Traveling Salesman Problem. This challenge asks for the shortest distance a salesman must travel if he is to visit N different cities. Though the problem statement appears trivial, it has survived for more than 150 years without a general solution. The use of swarm intelligence, specifically ant systems, has been quite successful in finding the salesman's optimal path. 

Dynamic Routing

Routing is the control mechanism that directs every message in a communications network from its source node to its destination node through a sequence of intermediate nodes or switching stations. In routing, true problems arise when portions of a network become congested and new routes must be found rapidly.

Technologies And Swarm Intelligence

 Swarm Intelligence is a design framework based on social insect behavior. Social insects such as ants, bees, and wasps are unique in the way these simple individuals cooperate to accomplish complex, difficult tasks. This cooperation is distributed among the entire population, without any centralized control.