An Analytical Approach to the Similarities between Swarm Intelligence and Artificial Immune System

Abstract

Swarm intelligence and artificial immune system (AIS) are both derived from imitation of nature biology system. Their common characteristic is that they both have simple individuals but appear emergence characteristic in population level through interaction among individuals. In order to explore inherent similarity of complex system, we take ant colony system (ACS) and AIS as objectives to study this similarity in this paper. From the similarity of system structure, we firstly analyze the similarities of artificial ants and artificial immune cells from individual structure, action and relationships among individuals, and then the similarity of system network structure based on interaction between individuals is discussed. Finally, the similarity of their operation environment is also compared. From the similarity of system operation mechanism, we firstly investigate the difference of ACS and AIS in individual and population level. After that, the effects of memory mechanism of these two algorithms on operation are also studied. At last, we further point out the similarity of diversity strategies. The purpose of the above work is to construct the inherent relationship among different bio-inspired computation methods, which has both important theoretic significance and practical value to reveal the generation and operation mechanisms of human intelligence.