Swarm intelligence: problem-solving societies (a review)

Abstract

This paper presents a review of the basic concepts of swarm intelligence and some views regarding the future of research in this area aimed at establishing a starting point for future work in different engineering fields. A bibliographic search of the most updated databases regarding classic articles on the subject and the most recent applications and results was used for constructing this review, especially in the areas of automatic control, signal and image processing and robotics. The main concepts were selected and organised in chronological order. A taxonomy was obtained for evolutionary computing techniques, a clear differentiation between swarm intelligence and other evolutionary algorithms and an overview of the different techniques and applications.