Preface
The series of biannual international conferences “ANTS – International Con-
ference on Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence”, now in its sixth
edition, was started ten years ago, with the organization of ANTS’98. As some
readers might recall, the first edition of ANTS was titled “ANTS’98 – From Ant
Colonies to Artificial Ants: First International Workshop on Ant Colony Opti-
mization.” In fact, at that time the focus was mainly on ant colony optimization
(ACO), the first swarm intelligence algorithm to go beyond a pure scientific
interest and to enter the realm of real-world applications.
Interestingly, in the ten years after the first edition there has been a grow-
ing interest not only for ACO, but for a number of other studies that belong
more generally to the area of swarm intelligence. The rapid growth of the swarm
intelligence field is attested by a number of indicators. First, the number of sub-
missions and participants to the ANTS conferences has steadily increased over
the years. Second, a number of international conferences in computational in-
telligence and related disciplines organize workshops on subjects such as swarm
intelligence, ant algorithms, ant colony optimization, and particle swarm opti-
mization. Third, IEEE started organizing, in 2003, the IEEE Swarm Intelligence
Symposium (in order to maintain unity in this growing field, we are currently
establishing a cooperation agreement between IEEE SIS and ANTS so as to have
IEEE SIS in odd years and ANTS in even years). Last, the Swarm Intelligence
1
journal was born.
Continuing a tradition started in 2002 with the third edition of ANTS, in
2008 the proceedings of the conference are also published in the Springer LNCS
series.
The current edition of the proceedings contains 17 full-length papers and
24 short papers. These were selected out of 91 submissions, which means that
45% of the submitted papers were accepted for publication. In addition to this,
10 submissions were accepted as extended abstracts: these represent potentially
interesting research that is still in its initial stage.
All the contributions to the proceedings were presented at the conference in
the form of poster presentations. This choice was intended to promote discussion
among the participants. Additionally, there were a few oral presentation, chosen
among the full-length papers.
Finally, we would like to thank all the people who helped in organizing
ANTS 2008. We are very grateful to the authors who submitted their works;
to the members of the international Program Committee and to the additional
referees for their detailed reviews; to the people of IRIDIA for their enthusiasm in
helping with organizational matters; to the Université Libre de Bruxelles for pro-
viding rooms and logistic support; and, more generally, to all those contributing
1
See http://www.springer.com/11721
