1.

INTRODUCTION

Swarm intelligence is the discipline that deals with natural and artificial systems composed of many individuals that coordinate using decentralized control and self-organization. In particular, the discipline focuses on the collective behaviors that result from the local interactions of the individuals with each other and with their environment. Examples of systems studied by swarm intelligence are colonies of ants and termites, schools of fish, flocks of birds, herds of land animals. Some human artifacts also fall into the domain of swarm intelligence, notably some multi-robot systems, and also certain computer programs that are written to tackle optimization and data analysis problems. Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in the context of cellular robotic systems. SI systems are typically made up of a population of simple agents or boids interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The inspiration often comes from nature, especially biological systems. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of "intelligent" global behavior, unknown to the individual agents. Natural examples of SI include ant colonies, bird flocking, animal herding, bacterial growth, and fish schooling.

The emergent collective intelligence of groups of simple agents.(Bonabeau et al, 1999)

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Some examples are group foraging of social insects, cooperative transportation, division of labour, nest-building of social insects, collective sorting and clustering

1.1 Analogies in IT and social insects

a) Distributed system of interacting autonomous agents b) Goals: performance optimization and robustness c) Self-organized control and cooperation (decentralized) d) Division of labour and distributed task allocation e) Indirect interactions

1.2 The 3 step process

1) Identification of analogies: in swarm biology and IT systems

2) Understanding: computer modelling of realistic swarm biology 3) Engineering: model simplification and tuning for IT applications

2. TAXONOMY OF SWARM INTELLINGENCE

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Swarm intelligence has a marked multidisciplinary character since systems with the above mentioned characteristics can be observed in a variety of domains. Research in swarm intelligence can be classified according to different criteria. Natural vs. Artificial: It is customary to divide swarm intelligence research into two areas according to the nature of the systems under analysis. We speak therefore of natural swarm intelligence research, where biological systems are studied; and of artificial swarm intelligence, where human artifacts are studied. Scientific vs. Engineering: An alternative and somehow more informative classification of swarm intelligence research can be given based on the goals that are pursued: we can identify a scientific and an engineering stream. The goal of the scientific stream is to model swarm intelligence systems and to single out and understand the mechanisms that allow a system as a whole to behave in a coordinated way as a result of local individual-individual and individual-environment interactions. On the other hand, the goal of the engineering stream is to exploit the understanding developed by the scientific stream in order to design systems that are able to solve problems of practical relevance. The two dichotomies natural/artificial and scientific/engineering are orthogonal: although the typical scientific investigation concerns natural systems and the typical engineering application concerns the development of an artificial system, a number of swarm intelligence studies have been performed with swarms of robots for validating mathematical models of biological systems. These studies are of a merely speculative nature and definitely belong in the scientific stream of swarm intelligence. On the other hand, one could influence or modify the behavior of the individuals in a biological swarm so that a new swarm-level behavior emerges that is somehow functional to the solution of some task of practical interest. In this case, although the system at hand is a natural one, the goals pursued are definitely those of an engineering application. In the following, an example is given for each of the four possible cases.

2.1 Natural/Scientific: Foraging Behaviour of Ants

In a now classic experiment done in 1990, Deneubourg and his group showed that, when given the choice

between two paths of different length joining the nest to a food source, a colony of ants has a high probability to collectively choose the shorter one. Deneubourg has shown that this behavior can be explained via a simple probabilistic model in which each ant decides where to go by taking random decisions based on the intensity of pheromone perceived on the ground, the pheromone being deposited by the ants while moving from the nest to the food source and back.

2.2 Artificial/Scientific: Clustering by a Swarm of Robots

Several ant species cluster corpses to form cemeteries. Deneubourg et al. (1991) were among the first to propose a distributed probabilistic model to explain this clustering behavior. In their model, ants pick up and drop items with probabilities that depend on information on corpse density which is locally available to the ants. Beckers et al. (1994) have programmed a group of robots to implement a similar clustering behavior demonstrating in this way one of the first swarm intelligence scientific oriented studies in which artificial agents were used.

2.3 Natural/Engineering: Exploitation of collective behaviors of animal socities

A possible development of swarm intelligence is the controlled exploitation of the collective behavior of animal societies. No example is available in this area of swarm intelligence although some promising research is currently in progress: For example, in the Leurre project, small insect-like robots are used as lures to influence the behavior of a group of cockroaches. The technology developed within this project could be applied to various domains including agriculture and cattle breeding.

2.4 Artificial/Engineering:Swarm-based Data Analysis

Engineers have used the models of the clustering behavior of ants as an inspiration for designing data mining algorithms. A seminal work in this direction was undertaken by Lumer and Faieta in 1994. They defined an

artificial environment in which artificial ants pick up and drop data items with probabilities that are governed by the similarities of other data items already present in their neighborhood. The same algorithm has also been used for solving combinatorial optimization problems reformulated as clustering problems (Bonabeau et al. 1999).

3. PROPERTIES OF SWARM INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM

The typical swarm intelligence system has the following properties:

1) It is composed of many individuals; 2) The individuals are relatively homogeneous (i.e., they are either all identical or they belong to a few typologies); 3) The interactions among the individuals are based on simple behavioral rules that exploit only local information that the individuals exchange directly or via the environment (stigmergy); 4) The overall behaviour of the system results from the interactions of individuals with each other and with their environment, that is, the group behavior self-organizes. The characterizing property of a swarm intelligence system is its ability to act in a coordinated way without the presence of a coordinator or of an external controller. Many examples can be observed in nature of swarms that perform some collective behavior without any individual controlling the group, or being aware of the overall group behavior. Notwithstanding the lack of individuals in charge of the group, the swarm as a whole can show an intelligent behavior. This is the result of the interaction of spatially neighboring individuals that act on the basis of simple rules. Most often, the behavior of each individual of the swarm is described in probabilistic terms: Each individual has a stochastic behavior that depends on his local perception of the neighborhood. Because of the above properties, it is possible to design swarm intelligence system that are scalable, parallel, and fault tolerant. Scalability means that a system can maintain its function while increasing its size without the need to redefine the way its parts interact. Because in a swarm intelligence system interactions involve only neighboring individuals, the number of interactions tends not to grow with the overall number of individuals in the swarm: each individual's behavior is only loosely influenced by the swarm dimension. In artificial systems, scalability is interesting because a scalable system can increase its performance by simply increasing its size, without the need for any reprogramming. Parallel action is possible in swarm intelligence systems because individuals composing the swarm can perform different actions in different places at the same time. In artificial systems, parallel action is desirable because it can help to make the system more flexible, that is, capable to self-organize in teams that take care

simultaneously of different aspects of a complex task. Fault tolerance is an inherent property of swarm intelligence systems due to the decentralized, selforganized nature of their control structures. Because the system is composed of many interchangeable individuals and none of them is in charge of controlling the overall system behavior, a failing individual can be easily dismissed and substituted by another one that is fully functioning.

4. STUDIES AND APPLICATIONS OF SWARM INTELLIGENCE

This section briefly presents a few examples of scientific and engineering swarm intelligence studies.
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Clustering Behavior of Ants Ants build cemeteries by collecting dead bodies into a single place in the nest. They also organize the
spatial disposition of larvae into clusters with the younger, smaller larvae in the cluster center and the older ones at its periphery. This clustering behavior has motivated a number of scientific studies. Scientists have built simple probabilistic models of these behaviors and have tested them in simulation (Bonabeau et al. 1999). The basic models state that an unloaded ant has a probability to pick up a corpse or a larva that is inversely proportional to their locally perceived density, while the probability that a loaded ant has to drop the carried item is proportional to the local density of similar items. This model has been validated against experimental data obtained with real ants. In the taxonomy this is an example of natural/scientific swarm intelligence system.

Nest Building Behavior of Wasps and Termites

Wasps build nests with a highly complex internal structure that is well beyond the cognitive capabilities of a single wasp. Termites build nests whose dimensions (they can reach many meters of diameter and height) are enormous when compared to a single individual, which can measure as little as a few millimeters. Scientists have been studying the coordination mechanisms that allow the construction of these structures and have proposed probabilistic models exploiting stigmergic communication to explain the insects' behavior. Some of these models have been implemented in computer programs and used to produce simulated structures structures that recall the morphology of the real nests (Bonabeau et al. 1999). In the taxonomy this is an example of natural/scientific swarm intelligence system.

Flocking and Schooling in Birds and Fish

Flocking and schooling are examples of highly coordinated group behaviors exhibited by large groups of birds and fish. Scientists have shown that these elegant swarm-level behaviors can be understood as the result of a self-organized process where no leader is in charge and each individual bases its movement decisions solely on locally available information: the distance, perceived speed, and direction of movement of neighbours. These studies have inspired a number of computer simulations (of which Reynolds' Boids simulation program was the first one) that are now used in the computer graphics industry for the realistic reproduction of flocking in movies and computer games. In the taxonomy these are examples respectively of natural/scientific and artificial/engineering swarm intelligence systems.

Swarm-based Network Management

The first swarm-based approaches to network management were proposed in 1996 by Schoonderwoerd et al., and in 1998 by Di Caro and Dorigo. Schoonderwoerd et al. proposed Ant-based Control (ABC), an algorithm for routing and load balancing in circuit-switched networks; Di Caro and Dorigo proposed AntNet, an algorithm for routing in packet-switched networks. While ABC was a proof-of-concept, AntNet, which is an ACO algorithm, was compared to many state-of-the-art algorithms and its performance was found to be competitive especially in situation of highly dynamic and stochastic data traffic as can be observed in Internetlike networks. An extension of AntNet has been successfully applied to ad-hoc networks (Di Caro, Ducatelle and Gambardella 2005). These algorithms are another example of successful artificial/engineering swarm intelligence system.

Cooperative Behavior in Swarms of Robots

There are a number of swarm behaviors observed in natural systems that have inspired innovative ways of solving problems by using swarms of robots. This is what is called swarm robotics. In other words, swarm robotics is the application of swarm intelligence principles to the control of swarms of robots. As with swarm intelligence systems in general, swarm robotics systems can have either a scientific or an engineering flavour. Clustering in a swarm of robots was mentioned above as an example of artificial/ scientific system. An example of artificial/engineering swarm intelligence system is the collective transport of an item too heavy for a single robot, a behavior also often observed in ant colonies.

5. SWARM INTELLIGENCE ALGORITHMS

5.1 Ant Colony Optimization

Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a class of optimization algorithms modeled on the actions of an ant colony. ACO methods are useful in problems that need to find paths to goals. Artificial
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agentslocate optimal solutions by moving through a parameter space representing all possible solutions. Real ants lay down pheromones directing each other to resources while exploring their environment. The simulated 'ants' similarly record their positions and the quality of their solutions, so that in later simulation iterations more ants locate better solutions.[4] One variation on this approach is the bees algorithm, which is more analogous to the foraging patterns of the honey bee. Ant colony optimization (Dorigo, Maniezzo and Colorni 1991; Dorigo and Sttzle 2004) is a population-based metaheuristic that can be used to find approximate solutions to difficult optimization problems. It is inspired by the above-described foraging behavior of ant colonies. In ant colony optimization (ACO), a set of software agents called "artificial ants" search for good solutions to a given optimization problem transformed into the problem of finding the minimum cost path on a weighted graph. The artificial ants incrementally build solutions by moving on the graph. The solution construction process is stochastic and is biased by a pheromone model, that is, a set of parameters associated with graph components (either nodes or edges) the values of which are modified at runtime by the ants. ACO has been applied successfully to many classical combinatorial optimization problems, as well as to discrete optimization problems that have stochastic and/or dynamic components. Examples are the application to routing in communication networks (see also the Swarm based Network Managementsection below) and to stochastic version of well-known combinatorial optimization problem, such as the probabilistic traveling salesman problem. Moreover, ACO has been extended so that it can be used to solve continuous and mixed-variable optimization problems (Socha and Dorigo in press). Ant colony optimization is probably the most successful example of artificial/engineering swarm intelligence system with numerous applications to real-world problems.

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5.2 Particle Swarm Optimization

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a global optimization algorithm for dealing with problems in which a best solution can be represented as a point or surface in an n-dimensional space. Hypotheses are plotted in this space and seeded with an initial velocity, as well as a communication channel between the particles. Particles then move through the solution space, and are evaluated according to some fitness criterion after each timestep. Over time, particles are accelerated towards those particles within their communication grouping which have better fitness values. The main advantage of such an approach over other global minimization strategies such as simulated annealing is that the large number of members that make up the particle swarm make the technique impressively resilient to the problem of local minima.
Particle swarm optimization (Kennedy and Eberhart 1995; Kennedy, Eberhart and Shi, 2001) is a population based stochastic optimization technique for the solution of continuous optimization problems. It is inspired by social behaviors in flocks of birds and schools of fish. In particle swarm optimization (PSO), a set of software agents called particles search for good solutions to a given continuous optimization problem. Each particle is a solution of the considered problem and uses its own experience and the experience of neighbor particles to choose how to move in the search space. In practice, in the initialization phase each particle is given a random initial position and an initial velocity. The position of the particle represents a solution of the problem and has therefore a value, given by the objective function. While moving in the search space, particles memorize the position of the best solution they found. At each iteration of the algorithm, each particle moves with a velocity that is a weighted sum of three components: the old velocity, a velocity component that drives the particle towards

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the location in the search space where it previously found the best solution so far, and a velocity component that drives the particle towards the location in the search space where the neighbor particles found the best solution so far. PSO has been applied to many different problems and is another example of successful artificial/engineering swarm intelligence system.

6. REAL WORLD INSECT EXAMPLES

6.1 Bees
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Colony cooperation Regulate hive temperature Efficiency via Specialization: division of labour in the colony

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Communication : Food sources are exploited according to quality and distance from the hive

Artificial bee colony algorithm

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a swarm based meta-heuristic algorithm introduced by Karaboga in 2005 [5], and simulates the foraging behaviour of honey bees. The ABC algorithm has three phases: employed bee, onlooker bee and scout bee. In the employed bee and the onlooker bee phases, bees exploit the sources by local searches in the neighbourhood of the solutions selected based on deterministic selection in the employed bee phase and the probabilistic selection in the onlooker bee phase. In the scout bee phase which is an analogy of abandoning exhausted food sources in the foraging process, solutions that are not beneficial anymore for search progress are abandoned, and new solutions are inserted instead of them to explore new regions in the search space. The algorithm has a well-balanced exploration and exploitation ability.

6.2 Wasps

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Pulp foragers, water foragers & builders Complex nests Horizontal columns Protective covering Central entrance hole

6.3 Termites
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Cone-shaped outer walls and ventilation ducts Brood chambers in central hive Spiral cooling vents Support pillars

6.4 Ants

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Organizing highways to and from their foraging sites by leaving pheromone trails Form chains from their own bodies to create a bridge to pull and hold leafs together with silk Division of labour between major and minor ants

6.5 Summary of the insects

The complexity and sophistication of
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Self-Organization is carried out with no clear leader What we learn about social insects can be applied to the field of Intelligent System Design The modeling of social insects by means of Self-Organization can help design artificial distributed problem solving devices. This is also known as Swarm Intelligent Systems.

6.6 Some Algorithms

Altruism algorithm
Researchers in Switzerland have developed an algorithm based on Hamilton's rule of kin selection. The algorithm shows how altruism in a swarm of entities can, over time, evolve and result in more effective swarm behaviour.

Ant colony optimization

Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a class of optimization algorithms modeled on the actions of an ant colony. ACO methods are useful in problems that need to find paths to goals. Artificial 'ants'simulation agentslocate optimal solutions by moving through a parameter space representing all possible solutions. Real ants lay down pheromones directing each other to resources while exploring their environment. The simulated 'ants' similarly record their positions and the quality of their solutions, so that in later simulation iterations more ants locate better solutions. One variation on this approach is the bees algorithm, which is more analogous to the foraging patterns of the honey bee.

Artificial bee colony algorithm

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a swarm based meta-heuristic algorithm introduced by Karaboga in 2005 , and simulates the foraging behaviour of honey bees. The ABC algorithm has three phases: employed bee, onlooker bee and scout bee. In the employed bee and the onlooker bee phases, bees exploit the sources by local searches in the neighbourhood of the solutions selected based on deterministic selection in the employed bee phase and the probabilistic selection in the onlooker bee phase. In the scout bee phase which is an analogy of abandoning exhausted food sources in the foraging process, solutions that are not beneficial anymore for search

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progress are abandoned, and new solutions are inserted instead of them to explore new regions in the search space. The algorithm has a well-balanced exploration and exploitation ability.

Artificial immune systems

Artificial immune systems (AIS) concerns the usage of abstract structure and function of the immune system to computational systems, and investigating the application of these systems towards solving computational problems from mathematics, engineering, and information technology. AIS is a sub-field of Biologically-inspired computing, and natural computation, with interests in Machine Learning and belonging to the broader field of Artificial Intelligence.

Charged system search

Charged System Search (CSS) is a new optimization algorithm based on some principles from physics and mechanics. CSS utilizes the governing laws of Coulomb and Gauss from electrostatics and the Newtonian laws of mechanics. CSS is a multi-agent approach in which each agent is a Charged Particle (CP). CPs can affect each other based on their fitness values and their separation distances. The quantity of the resultant force is determined by using the electrostatics laws and the quality of the movement is determined using Newtonian mechanics laws. CSS is applicable to all optimization fields; especially it is suitable for non-smooth or non-convex domains. This algorithm provides a good balance between the exploration and the exploitation paradigms of the algorithm which can considerably improve the efficiency of the algorithm and therefore the CSS also can be considered as a good global and local optimizer simultaneously.

Cuckoo search
Cuckoo search (CS) mimics the brooding behaviour of some cuckoo species, which use host birds to hatch their eggs and raise their chicks. This cuckoo search algorithm is enhanced with Levy flights with jump steps drawn from Levy distribution. Recent studies suggested that CS can outperform other algorithms such as particle swarm optimization. For example, a comparison of the cuckoo search with PSO, DE and ABC suggest that CS and DEalgorithms provide more robust results than PSO and ABC

Firefly Algorithm
Firefly algorithm (FA) is another swarm-based algorithm, which was inspired by the flashing behaviour of fireflies.

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Light intensity is associated with attractiveness of a firefly, and such attraction enable the fireflies with the ability to subdivide into small groups and each subgroup swarm around the local modes. Therefore, firefly algorithm is specially suitable for multimodal optimization problems. In fact, FA has been applied in continuous optimization, traveling salesman problem, clustering, image processing and feature selection.

Gravitational search algorithm

Gravitational search algorithm (GSA) is constructed based on the law of gravity and the notion of mass interactions. The GSA algorithm uses the theory of Newtonian physics and its searcher agents are the collection of masses. In GSA, there is an isolated system of masses. Using the gravitational force, every mass in the system can see the situation of other masses. The gravitational force is therefore a way of transferring information between different masses (Rashedi, Nezamabadi-pour and Saryazdi 2009). In GSA, agents are considered as objects and their performance is measured by their masses. All these objects attract each other by a gravity force, and this force causes a movement of all objects globally towards the objects with heavier masses. The heavy masses correspond to good solutions of the problem. The position of the agent corresponds to a solution of the problem, and its mass is determined using a fitness function. By lapse of time, masses are attracted by the heaviest mass. We hope that this mass would present an optimum solution in the search space. The GSA could be considered as an isolated system of masses. It is like a small artificial world of masses obeying the Newtonian laws of gravitation and motion (Rashedi, Nezamabadi-pour and Saryazdi 2009). A multi-objective variant of GSA, called Non-dominated Sorting Gravitational Search Algorithm (NSGSA), was proposed by Nobahari and Nikusokhan in 2011.

Intelligent water drops

Intelligent Water Drops algorithm (IWD) is a swarm-based nature-inspired optimization algorithm, which has been inspired by natural rivers and how they find almost optimal paths to their destination. These near optimal or optimal paths follow from actions and reactions occurring among the water drops and the water drops with their riverbeds. In the IWD algorithm, several artificial water drops cooperate to change their environment in such a way that the optimal path is revealed as the one with the lowest soil on its links. The solutions are incrementally constructed by the IWD algorithm. Consequently, the IWD algorithm is generally a constructive population-based optimization algorithm.

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Multi-swarm optimization
Multi-swarm optimization is a variant of particle swarm optimization (PSO) based on the use of multiple sub swarms instead of one (standard) swarm. The general approach in multi-swarm optimization is that each sub swarm focuses on a specific region while a specific diversification method decides where and when to launch the sub-swarms. The multi-swarm framework is especially fitted for the optimization on multi-modal problems, where multiple (local) optima exist.

Particle swarm optimization

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a global optimization algorithm for dealing with problems in which a best solution can be represented as a point or surface in an n-dimensional space. Hypotheses are plotted in this space and seeded with an initial velocity, as well as a communication channel between the particles. Particles then move through the solution space, and are evaluated according to some fitness criterion after each timestep. Over time, particles are accelerated towards those particles within their communication grouping which have better fitness values. The main advantage of such an approach over other global minimization strategies such as simulated annealing is that the large number of members that make up the particle swarm make the technique impressively resilient to the problem of local minima.

River formation dynamics

River formation dynamics (RFD) is an heuristic method similar to ant colony optimization (ACO). In fact, RFD can be seen as a gradient version of ACO, based on copying how water forms rivers by eroding the ground and depositing sediments. As water transforms the environment, altitudes of places are dynamically modified, and decreasing gradients are constructed. The gradients are followed by subsequent drops to create new gradients, reinforcing the best ones. By doing so, good solutions are given in the form of decreasing altitudes. This method has been applied to solve different NP-complete problems (for example, the problems of finding a minimum distances tree and finding a minimum spanning tree in a variable-cost graph). The gradient orientation of RFD makes it specially suitable for solving these problems and provides a good tradeoff between finding good results and not spending much computational time. In fact, RFD fits particularly well for problems consisting in forming a kind of covering tree.

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Self-propelled particles
Self-propelled particles (SPP), also referred to as the CouzinVicsek algorithm, was introduced in 1995 by Vicsek and Couzin et al. as a special case of the boids model introduced in 1986 by Reynolds. A swarm is modelled in SPP by a collection of particles that move with a constant speed but respond to a random perturbation by adopting at each time increment the average direction of motion of the other particles in their local neighbourhood. SPP models predict that swarming animals share certain properties at the group level, regardless of the type of animals in the swarm. Swarming systems give rise to emergent behaviors which occur at many different scales, some of which are turning out to be both universal and robust. It has become a challenge in theoretical physics to find minimal statistical models that capture these behaviours.

Stochastic diffusion search

Stochastic diffusion search (SDS) is an agent-based probabilistic global search and optimization technique best suited to problems where the objective function can be decomposed into multiple independent partial-functions. Each agent maintains a hypothesis which is iteratively tested by evaluating a randomly selected partial objective function parameterised by the agent's current hypothesis. In the standard version of SDS such partial function evaluations are binary, resulting in each agent becoming active or inactive. Information on hypotheses is diffused across the population via inter-agent communication. Unlike the stigmergic communication used in ACO, in SDS agents communicate hypotheses via a one-to-one communication strategy analogous to the tandem running procedure observed in some species of ant. A positive feedback mechanism ensures that, over time, a population of agents stabilise around the global-best solution. SDS is both an efficient and robust search and optimization algorithm, which has been extensively mathematically described.

Applications
Swarm Intelligence-based techniques can be used in a number of applications. The U.S. military is investigating swarm techniques for controlling unmanned vehicles. The European Space Agency is thinking about an orbital swarm for self assembly and interferometry. NASA is investigating the use of swarm technology for planetary mapping. A 1992 paper by M. Anthony Lewis and George A. Bekey discusses the possibility of using swarm intelligence to control nanobots within the body for the purpose of killing cancer tumors. Swarm intelligence has also been applied for data mining.

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Crowd simulation
Artists are using swarm technology as a means of creating complex interactive systems or simulating crowds. Stanley and Stella in: Breaking the Ice was the first movie to make use of swarm technology for rendering, realistically depicting the movements of groups of fish and birds using the Boids system. Tim Burton's Batman Returns also made use of swarm technology for showing the movements of a group of bats. The Lord of the Rings film trilogy made use of similar technology, known as Massive, during battle scenes. Swarm technology is particularly attractive because it is cheap, robust, and simple. Airlines have used swarm theory to simulate passengers boarding a plane. Southwest Airlines researcher Douglas A. Lawson used an ant-based computer simulation employing only six interaction rules to evaluate boarding times using various boarding methods.(Miller, 2010, xii-xviii).

Ant-based routing
The use of Swarm Intelligence in Telecommunication Networks has also been researched, in the form of Ant Based Routing. This was pioneered separately by Dorigo et al. and Hewlett Packard in the mid-1990s, with a number of variations since. Basically this uses a probabilistic routing table rewarding/reinforcing the route successfully traversed by each "ant" (a small control packet) which flood the network. Reinforcement of the route in the forwards, reverse direction and both simultaneously have been researched: backwards reinforcement requires a symmetric network and couples the two directions together; forwards reinforcement rewards a route before the outcome is known (but then you pay for the cinema before you know how good the film is). As the system behaves stochastically and is therefore lacking repeatability, there are large hurdles to commercial deployment. Mobile media and new technologies have the potential to change the threshold for collective action due to swarm intelligence (Rheingold: 2002, P175). Airlines have also used ant-based routing in assigning aircraft arrivals to airport gates. At Southwest Airlines a software program uses swarm theory, or swarm intelligencethe idea that a colony of ants works better than one alone. Each pilot acts like an ant searching for the best airport gate. "The pilot learns from his experience what's the best for him, and it turns out that that's the best solution for the airline," Douglas A. Lawson explains. As aresult, the "colony" of pilots always go to gates they can arrive at and depart from quickly. The program can even alert a pilot of plane back-ups before they happen. "We can anticipate that it's going to happen, so we'll have a gate available," Lawson says.

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7. SWARM INTELLIGENCE IN THEORY

7.1 An In-depth Look at Real Ant Behaviour

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7.2 Interrupt The Flow

7.3 The Path Thickens!

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7.4 The New Shortest Path

7.5 Adapting to Environment Changes

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8. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

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8.1 Robots

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Collective task completion No need for overly complex algorithms Adaptable to changing environment

8.2 Robot feeding demo

Routing packets to destination in shortest time Similar to Shortest Route Statistics kept from prior routing (learning from experience)

8.3 Swarm Robotics

Most important application area of Swarm Intelligence Swarms provide the possibility of enhanced task performance, high reliability (fault tolerance), low unit complexity and decreased cost over traditional robotic systems Can accomplish some tasks that would be impossible for a single robot to achieve. Swarm robots can be applied to many fields, such as flexible manufacturing systems, spacecraft, inspection/maintenance, construction, agriculture, and medicine work

9. APPLICATIONS
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 Massive (Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment) Software. Developed Stephen Regelous for visual effects industry. Snowbots
Developed Sandia National laboratory.

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