This paper overviews origin and some applications of ant system of optimization. Ants live in colonies. The colony can be regarded as a multiagent organization where each agent performs independently as governed by goal of colony survival.. On observing the behavior of ants, Ant-Algorithm was proposed. The ant algorithms have been extensively studied by European researchers. These algorithms ha...

Set covering problem is the model for many important industrial applications. In this paper, we solve some benchmarks of this problem with ant colony optimization algorithms using a new transition rule. A look-ahead mechanism was incorporated to check constraint consistency in ant computing. Computational results are presented showing the advantages to use this additional mechanism to ant syste...

Ant colony optimization is a well known metaheuristic which has been object of many studies, both theoretic and applicative. In a recent analysis [1], a particular aspect of its behavior is investigated. More in detail, the topic object of interest is the result achieved by ant algorithms when the cost unit in which instances are expressed changes. Three ant colony optimization algorithms are p...