The laws that govern the collective behavior of social insects, flocks of birds, or fish schools continue to mesmerize researchers. While individuals are rather unsophisticated, in cooperation they can solve complex tasks, a prime example being the ability of ant colonies to find shortest paths between their nests and food sources. Task-solving results from self-organization, which often evolves from simple means of communication, either directly or indirectly via changing the environment, the latter referred to as stigmergy. Scientists have applied these principles in new approaches, for example to optimization and the control of robots. Characteristics of the resulting systems include robustness and flexibility. This field of research is now referred to as swarm intelligence. The contributing authors are among the top researchers in their domain. The book is intended to provide an overview of swarm intelligence to novices, and to offer researchers in the field an update on interesting recent developments. Introductory chapters deal with the biological foundations, optimization, swarm robotics, and applications in new-generation telecommunication networks, while the second part contains chapters on more specific topics of swarm intelligence research such as the evolution of robot behavior, the use of particle swarms for dynamic optimization, and organic computing.

龍飛 湖南常德人，1984年生，2005年畢業於南京大學，獲理學學士學位。同年進入清華大學直接攻讀博士學位。2006年赴德國漢堡大學進行多模交互的相關研究。2007年以訪問學生身份進入美國耶魯大學進行計算機網絡技術相關研究，為期15個月。曾參與國傢863項目、國傢自然科學傑齣青年基金和多項國傢自然科學基金項目的研究。主要研究方嚮為衛星網絡路由、路由協議設計與優化，對雲計算和多模態交互等領域也有所涉及。在國內外發錶SCI和El檢索論文10餘篇。