A New Ant Colony Algorithm Using the Heterarchical Concept Aimed at Optimization of Multiminima Continuous Functions

Ant colony algorithms are a class of metaheuristics which are inspired from the behaviour of real ants. The original idea consisted in simulating the trail communication, therefore these algorithms are considered as a form of adaptive memory programming. A new formalization is proposed for the design of ant colony algorithms, introducing the biological notions of heterarchy and communication channels.