Swarm Intelligence - what kinds of problems are effectively solved?

Question

I am looking for practical problem (or implementations, applications) examples which are effectively algoritmized using swarm intelligence. I found that multicriteria optimization is one example. Are there any others?

IMHO swarm-intelligence should be added to the tags

Answer 1

Are you looking for toy problems or more for real-world applications?

In the latter category I know variants on swarm intelligence algorithms are used in Hollywood for CGI animations such as large (animated) armies riding the fields of battle.

Related but more towards the toy-problem end of the spectrum you can model large crowds with similar algorithms, and use it for example to simulate disaster-scenarios. AFAIK the Dutch institute TNO has research groups on this topic, though I couldn't find an English link just by googling.

One suggestion for a place to start further investigation would be this PDF book:

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~schut/dbldot/collectivae/sci/sci.pdf

That book also has an appendix (B) with some sample projects you could try and work on.

If you want to get a head start there are several frameworks (scientific use) for multi-agent systems such as swarming intelligence (most of 'em are written with Java I think). Some of them include sample apps too. For example have a look at these:

Repast: http://repast.sourceforge.net/repast_3/

Swarm.org: http://swarm.org/

Netlogo: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo

Post edited, added more info.