Ant colony optimization model
The ant colony optimization (ACO) is another widely used and adapted variation of the SI algorithms. At its minimum, the objective of the ant colony or the artificial agent swarms is to set out in search for an asset (food in case of ants and a package in case of a robot colony in a retailer warehouse) in an optimum way so as to traverse minimum distance to and from the asset and the base location. This model is useful with surveillance drones, autonomous car route planning, and so on.
Let us understand some of the operating principles in an ant colony and get introduced to the terminologies so that those can be applied in designing artificial swarms based on the ACO model. Here is a figure of an Ant colony and a Food source:
Figure 9.4 Ant colony representation and terms
In this example, there is food source in the vicinity of the ant colony. There are two paths to the food. Path-1 is a long distance to the Food source and Path-2 is the shortest distance. The...