Swarms act as intelligent organizations: ants and bees

1 of 2 Swarm of bees / Dennis (Dude.. / License

Colonies of social insects such as ants function efficiently because swarms are flexible, robust, and self-organize.

Biomimicry Taxonomy

	Maintain community >
	Coordinate >
	Groups (self-organize)

Biomimetic Application Ideas

Optimized energy use systems Efficient computer systems such as file sharing Efficient call routing systems

[Collapse all sections] Summary

"In essence, we believe that social insects have been so successful--they are almost everywhere in the ecosphere--because of three characteristics:

flexibility (the colony can adapt to a changing environment);

robustness (even when one or more individuals fail, the group can still perform its tasks); and

self-organization (activities are neither centrally controlled nor locally supervised).

"Business executives relate readily to the first two attributes, but they often balk at the third, which is perhaps the most intriguing. Through self-organization, the behavior of the group emerges from the collective interactions of all the individuals. In fact, a major recurring theme in swarm intelligence (and of complexity science in general) is that even if individuals follow simple rules, the resulting group behavior can be surprisingly complex--and remarkably effective. And, to a large extent, fiexibility and robustness result from self-organization." (Bonabeau and Meyer 2001:108)

Bioinspired products and application ideas

Application Ideas: Optimized energy use systems. Efficient transportation systems. Efficient computer systems such as file sharing, optimization and control algorithms. Efficient call routing systems.

Industrial Sector(s) interested in this strategy: Business, computing, marketing, transportation, communications

REGEN Energy Management Solution - Wireless energy controllers

MUTE File Sharing - Peer-to-peer file sharing

Experts

Iosystem Corporation
Eric Bonabeau

References

Bonabeau, E; Dorigo, M; Theraulaz, G. 2000. Inspiration for optimization from social insect behavior. Nature. 406: 39-42.

Bonabeau, E; Meyer, C. 2002. Swarm intelligence: a new way to think about business. Harvard Business Review. 79(5): 107-114.

Bonabeau, E; Theraulaz, G. 2000. Swarm smarts. Scientific American. 282(3): 72-79.

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Comments

Yes, there's interest in looking at swarms for lots of purposes. See this entry on range voting...

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