The Ant Colony Paradigm for Reliable Systems Design

Abstract

This chapter introduces a relatively new meta-heuristic for combinatorial optimization, the ant colony. The ant colony algorithm is a multiple solution global optimizer that iterates to find optimal or near optimal solutions. Like its siblings genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, it is inspired by observation of natural systems, in this case, the behavior of ants in foraging for food. Since there are many difficult combinatorial problems in the design of reliable systems, applying new meta-heuristics to this field makes sense. The ant colony approach with its flexibility and exploitation of solution structure is a promising alternative to exact methods, rules of thumb and other meta-heuristics.