Ants are excellent route finders, with the ability to find the shortest path between their nest and a food source, by using pheromone trail clues to organize themselves collectively. By applying behaviour observed in ant colonies to the field of computing, these ant-based techniques can provide a base for network routing algorithms, as well as algorithms to solve graph problems such as the travelling salesman problem. This report introduces ant behaviour by the implementation of an ant simulation, and finally applies lessons learned from the simulation to graph and network routing problems.

See the old ant project website for more.