Abstract

Nature is full of ingenious solutions to problems, many of which can be re-purposed for use in computer systems. In this talk, we will discuss one application of the field of ‘Swarm Intelligence’: a computation technique inspired by the way natural systems tend to solve problems.

We will apply the principles of swarm intelligence to develop a surprisingly simple and accurate model of the way birds flock in large groups. I will show how we can extend our simple flock model to solve numerical optimisation problems that are handled poorly by traditional solutions. Our extended bird flocking model will be identical to a popular optimisation algorithm known as ‘Particle Swarm Optimisation’.