Ant-based and swarm-based clustering

Clustering with swarm-based algorithms is emerging as an alternative to more conventional clustering methods, such as hierarchical clustering and k-means. Ant-based clustering stands out as the most widely used group of swarm-based clustering algorithms. Broadly speaking, there are two main types of ant-based clustering: the first group of methods directly mimics the clustering behavior observed in real ant colonies. The second group is less directly inspired by nature: the clustering task is reformulated as an optimization task and general purpose ant-based optimization heuristics are utilized to find good or near-optimal clusterings. This papers reviews both approaches and places these methods in the wider context of general swarm-based clustering approaches.