Alejandra Poveda (0935683) Katerin Carrillo (0939482)

Learning from Ants

By David Schwager and Brian Kleiner Among the three biologically influenced modeling techniques neural networks, genetic algorithms and ant colony optimization (ACO), ACO is the newest and the most intriguing because of its close connection with easily observable nature. Looking at actual ants shows several possible improvements. Many of the ACO models include a memory or map. In the traveling salesman problem, for example, the imaginary ants remember which cities they visited and know which cities they have not yet visited. Real ants, however, have no memory. Mathematicians could improve on nature in other ways. For example, one virtual ant could pass the exact turns and length of the best known path to a second ant, refining the random searches. Although we can consider how the model can improve upon nature, it is more interesting to consider the ways in which nature can improve upon the model. ACO is a simplification of nature, and several aspects of social insects could have commercial applications.

More pheromone types. The model uses one pheromone, but actual ants use nine to 20. The telephone routing agents, for example, could mark good routes with one scent and blocked routes with another. More agent types. The model uses one class of ant, but real ants have several types of workers. Returning to the communications network, one class of agent could handle each type of traffic. More tasks. Many firms use ACO for routing and combination problems similar to food gathering. Ants form other complex tasks using the same undirected, selforganized principles, such as caring for their young, building underground cities and fighting wars. It may be too much to ask the algorithm to design and build cities or structures, but perhaps it could build virtual edifices such as relational databases.

Examining ant colonies naturally leads one to consider other social insects. Termites, bees or wasps combine to form a meta-organism somewhat like the way cells in animals and plants cooperate to make one organism. This is the link between ACO and neural networks. One simulates cells in an animal while another models animals that cooperate as if they were cells. There has been some effort to find business applications of the behavior of honeybees. Older bees look for food while younger bees work at the hive. If food runs low, however, young bees also forage outside the nest. Researchers at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom applied this concept to flexible manufacturing. A multifunction machine tool, for example, may be dedicated to a particular job, but change jobs when it senses the need.

Read more about ant colony optimization and other modeling techniques from nature in David Schwager and Brian Kleiner's article "Modeling Systems by Nature" in the January/February 2010 issue of Industrial Management