Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems (Santa Fe Institute Studies on the Sciences of Complexity)

By Eric Bonabeau, Marco Dorigo, Guy Theraulaz,

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 1999-08-27
Sales Rank: 1761373
ISBN / ASIN: 0195131584
EAN: 9780195131581
Binding: Hardcover
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
Average Rating: 4.5

Social insects--ants, bees, termites, and wasps--can be viewed as powerful problem-solving systems with sophisticated collective intelligence. Composed of simple interacting agents, this intelligence lies in the networks of interactions among individuals and between individuals and the environment. A fascinating subject, social insects are also a powerful metaphor for artificial intelligence, and the problems they solve--finding food, dividing labor among nestmates, building nests, responding to external challenges--have important counterparts in engineering and computer science. This book provides a detailed look at models of social insect behavior and how to apply these models in the design of complex systems. The book shows how these models replace an emphasis on control, preprogramming, and centralization with designs featuring autonomy, emergence, and distributed functioning. These designs are proving immensely flexible and robust, able to adapt quickly to changing environments and to continue functioning even when individual elements fail. In particular, these designs are an exciting approach to the tremendous growth of complexity in software and information. Swarm Intelligence draws on up-to-date research from biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, operations research, and computer graphics, and each chapter is organized around a particular biological example, which is then used to develop an algorithm, a multiagent system, or a group of robots. The book will be an invaluable resource for a broad range of disciplines.

Review:

Impressively good, but not an introduction

Compared to "Swarm intelligence" by James Kennedy, this one is not introductive but gets quite deep into the working of applying the "swarm" paradigm to optimization problems. I would rather recommmend for a person not used to meta-heuristics and optimization to first go to the book by Kennedy. Only if one is interested in using swarm for solving real optimization problems reading this one is a good idea.

This book illustrates several features of swarm behavior that can be leveraged for optimization. The authors writing style is equivalent to technical papers, so be prepared...this is no easy book.

Review:

A first milestone in the study of Swarm Intelligence

The book of Bonabeau, Dorigo, and Theraulaz is an excellent example of synergetic work between a physicist, an engineer, and a biologist. The Swarm Intelligence principles are first described and understood through models in natural systems and then translated in optimization algorithms, distributed algorithms for robotic control, and so on. Even if the book does not completely succeed in linking all three disciplines together - computer science, engineering, and biology - under a sound, common formalism, it represents an extremely up to date collection of work carried out worldwide in the field of Swarm Intelligence. I strongly believe in the future of this field and of its applications to problems hard to tackle with classical techniques. This book summarizes in an very equilibrated way the early, promising steps of Swarm Intelligence.

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