Swarm Intelligence and Bio-Inspired Computation: 1. Swarm Intelligence and Bio-Inspired Computation: An Overview

Swarm intelligence (SI) and bio-inspired computing in general have attracted great interest in almost every area of science, engineering, and industry over the last two decades. In this chapter, we provide an overview of some of the most widely used bio-inspired algorithms, especially those based on SI such as cuckoo search, firefly algorithm, and particle swarm optimization. We also analyze the essence of algorithms and their connections to self-organization. Furthermore, we highlight the main challenging issues associated with these metaheuristic algorithms with in-depth discussions. Finally, we provide some key, open problems that need to be addressed in the next decade.