Computational Swarm Intelligence

One body of exploratory computer science, now collectively known as Computational Swarm Intelligence, solves complex optimization problems by mimicking the flocking behavior of birds and the foraging behavior of ants (see Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence, by A. Engelbrecht, Hoboken, NJ John Wiley Sons, 2005). 

A couple of more recent texts provide gentle introductions to the subject. Evolutionary Computation by De Jong12 looks beyond the basic genetic algorithm, but does so at a studied pace, thus is suitable for those who do not yet have much experience in the field. Finally, Swarm Intelligence, by Kennedy and... 

Millor, J., Halloy, J., Ame, J.-M. and Deneubourg, J.-L. (2006). Individual discrimination capability and collective choice in social insects. In Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin Springer, pp. 167-178. 

Nowadays, smartphones are increasingly relevant in daily life among a very wide range of users. This remarkable growth results from some features such as portability, which traditional computers lack. This feature as well as relatively small size can be applied to solve old problems in new ways. In particular, there are two key features for the implementation of our framework (1) The smartphones wireless connectivity, which allows the deployment of a swarm intelligent system, and (2) built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) reception that provides location information. 

Garg H, Sharma SP. 2011.Behavior and system performance optimization for an industrial system by using particle swarm optimization. In 2011 IEEE international conference on intelligent computing and intelligent systems (ICIS 2011), Guangzhou, China 2011.p.237-41. 

Yang X.-S., Cui Z, Xiao R., Gandomi A. H., Karamanoglu M. 2013 Swarm Intelligence and Bio-Inspired Computation Theory and Applications, Elsevier Inc. 

Daniel S. F. Alves graduated in Computer Science (magna cum laude) at Universidad Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), in 2012. Currently, he is a MSc student in Computer Science at COPPE-UFRJ. He has interests in artificial intelligence, swarm robotics, and logic. 

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