Swarm intelligence

Accessing a higher level of intelligence and performance by networking

Abstract

Intelligent behaviour is a phenomenon which is found within communities of individuals of the same species, although this is unknown to the individual agent. The socalled swarm intelligence is found in different degrees in insect colonies, flocks of birds, shoaling fish but also in slime moulds or bacterial films. Swarm aggregation can be triggered by increasingly difficult environmental conditions, e.g. lack of food. The new communities or superorganisms are stabilized by intensive communication among the members. The collective performance is partially due to a set of simple rules, which computer scientists use to create suitable algorithms for technical applications. This form of artificial intelligence helps to solve optimizing tasks for the efficient logistical processing of data and goods. It is striking that crosslinking the units of a biological system not only generates more complexity but also results in unprecedented synergistic effects: The entire system is more than the sum of the parts.