Synthetic Genes for artificial ants. Diversity in ant colony optimization algorithms

Inspired from the fact that the real world ants from within a colony are not clones (although they may look alike, they are different from one another), in this paper, the authors are presenting an adapted ant colony optimisation (ACO) algorithm that incorporates methods and ideas from genetic algorithms (GA). Following the first (introductory) section of the paper is presented the history and the state of the art, beginning with the stigmergy and genetic concepts and ending with the latest ACO algorithm variants as multiagent systems (MAS). The rationale and the approach sections are aiming at presenting the problems with current stigmergy-based algorithms and at proposing a (possible - ye…