Ant colony optimization: A bibliometric review
Christian Blum
Abstract
This paper is a follow-up of one of the most-cited articles published in the first 20 years of the existence of Physics of Life Reviews . The specific topic is “ant colony optimization”, which is a metaheuristic for solving challenging optimization problems. Due to its inspiration from natural ant colonies' shortest path-finding behavior, this optimization technique forms part of a larger field known as swarm intelligence. After a short introduction to ant colony optimization, we first provide a chronology focusing on algorithmic developments rather than applications. The main part of the paper deals with a bibliometric study of the ant colony optimization literature. Interesting trends concerning, for example, the geographic origin of publications and the change in research focus over time, can be learned from the presented graphs and numbers. • This paper provides a concise chronology of developments in ant colony optimization. • In addition, the paper examines the existing body of literature on ant colony optimization from a bibliometric point of view. • Studied aspects include the scientific fields in which papers are published, their provenance, and the publication types. • We show that journal paper publishing was on the rise over time, while the opposite happened regarding conference publications.