An Improved Image Steganography Security and Capacity Using Ant Colony Algorithm Optimization

This advanced paper presents a new approach to improving image steganography using the Ant Colony Optimization(ACO)algorithm.Image steganography,a technique of embedding hidden information in digital photographs,should ideally achieve the dual purposes of maximum data hiding and maintenance of the integrity of the cover media so that it is least suspect.The contemporary methods of steganography are at best a compromise between these two.In this paper,we present our approach,entitled Ant Colony Optimization(ACO)-Least Significant Bit(LSB),which attempts to optimize the capacity in steganographic embedding.The approach makes use of a grayscale cover image to hide the confidential data with an additional bit pair per byte,both for integrity verification and the file checksumof the secret data.This approach encodes confidential information into four pairs of bits and embeds it within uncompressed grayscale images.The ACO algorithm uses adaptive exploration to select some pixels,maximizing the capacity of data embedding whileminimizing the degradation of visual quality.Pheromone evaporation is introduced through iterations to avoid stagnation in solution refinement.The levels of pheromone are modified to reinforce successful pixel choices.Experimental results obtained through the ACO-LSB method reveal that it clearly improves image steganography capabilities by providing an increase of up to 30%in the embedding capacity compared with traditional approaches;the average Peak Signal to Noise Ratio(PSNR)is 40.5 dB with a Structural Index Similarity(SSIM)of 0.98.The approach also demonstrates very high resistance to detection,cutting down the rate by 20%.Implemented in MATLAB R2023a,the model was tested against one thousand publicly available grayscale images,thus providing robust evidence of its effectiveness.

Feature Extraction of Stored-grain Insects Based on Ant Colony Optimization and Support Vector Machine Algorithm

[Objective] The aim was to study the feature extraction of stored-grain insects based on ant colony optimization and support vector machine algorithm, and to explore the feasibility of the feature extraction of stored-grain insects. [Method] Through the analysis of feature extraction in the image recognition of the stored-grain insects, the recognition accuracy of the cross-validation training model in support vector machine （SVM） algorithm was taken as an important factor of the evaluation principle of feature extraction of stored-grain insects. The ant colony optimization （ACO） algorithm was applied to the automatic feature extraction of stored-grain insects. [Result] The algorithm extracted the optimal feature subspace of seven features from the 17 morphological features, including area and perimeter. The ninety image samples of the stored-grain insects were automatically recognized by the optimized SVM classifier, and the recognition accuracy was over 95%. [Conclusion] The experiment shows that the application of ant colony optimization to the feature extraction of grain insects is practical and feasible.

Novel Approach to Nonlinear PID Parameter Optimization Using Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm

This paper presents an application of an Ant Colony Optimization （ACO） algorithm to optimize the parameters in the design of a type of nonlinear PID controller. The ACO algorithm is a novel heuristic bionic algorithm, which is based on the behaviour of real ants in nature searching for food. In order to optimize the parameters of the nonlinear PID controller using ACO algorithm, an objective function based on position tracing error was constructed, and elitist strategy was adopted in the improved ACO algorithm. Detailed simulation steps are presented. This nonlinear PID controller using the ACO algorithm has high precision of control and quick response.

Max-Min Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization Approach to Multi-UAVs Coordinated Trajectory Replanning in Dynamic and Uncertain Environments

Multiple Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (multi-UAVs) coordinated trajectory replanning is one of the most complicated global optimum problems in multi-UAVs coordinated control. Based on the construction of the basic model of multi-UAVs coordinated trajectory replanning, which includes problem description, threat modeling, constraint conditions, coordinated function and coordination mechanism, a novel Max-Min adaptive Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) approach is presented in detail. In view of the characteristics of multi-UAVs coordinated trajectory replanning in dynamic and uncertain environments, the minimum and maximum pheromone trails in ACO are set to enhance the searching capability, and the point pheromone is adopted to achieve the collision avoidance between UAVs at the trajectory planner layer. Considering the simultaneous arrival and the air-space collision avoidance, an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) is decided first. Then the trajectory and flight velocity of each UAV are determined. Simulation experiments are performed under the complicated combating environment containing some static threats and popup threats. The results demonstrate the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Blackboard Mechanism Based Ant Colony Theory for Dynamic Deployment of Mobile Sensor Networks

A novel bionic swarm intelligence algorithm, called ant colony algorithm based on a blackboard mechanism, is proposed to solve the autonomy and dynamic deployment of mobiles sensor networks effectively. A blackboard mechanism is introduced into the system for making pheromone and completing the algorithm. Every node, which can be looked as an ant, makes one information zone in its memory for communicating with other nodes and leaves pheromone, which is created by ant itself in naalre. Then ant colony theory is used to find the optimization scheme for path planning and deployment of mobile Wireless Sensor Network （WSN）. We test the algorithm in a dynamic and unconfigurable environment. The results indicate that the algorithm can reduce the power consumption by 13% averagely, enhance the efficiency of path planning and deployment of mobile WSN by 15% averagely.

An adaptive ant colony system algorithm for continuous-space optimization problems

Ant colony algorithms comprise a novel category of evolutionary computation methods for optimization problems, especially for sequencing-type combinatorial optimization problems. An adaptive ant colony algorithm is proposed in this paper to tackle continuous-space optimization problems, using a new objective-function-based heuristic pheromone assignment approach for pheromone update to filtrate solution candidates.Global optimal solutions can be reached more rapidly by self-adjusting the path searching behaviors of the ants according to objective values. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with a basic ant colony algorithm and a Square Quadratic Programming approach in solving two benchmark problems with multiple extremes. The results indicated that the efficiency and reliability of the proposed algorithm were greatly improved.

Improved Ant Colony-Genetic Algorithm for Information Transmission Path Optimization in Remanufacturing Service System

The information transmission path optimization(ITPO) can often a ect the e ciency and accuracy of remanufactur?ing service. However, there is a greater degree of uncertainty and complexity in information transmission of remanu?facturing service system, which leads to a critical need for designing planning models to deal with this added uncer?tainty and complexity. In this paper, a three?dimensional(3D) model of remanufacturing service information network for information transmission is developed, which combines the physic coordinate and the transmitted properties of all the devices in the remanufacturing service system. In order to solve the basic ITPO in the 3D model, an improved 3D ant colony algorithm(Improved AC) was put forward. Moreover, to further improve the operation e ciency of the algorithm, an improved ant colony?genetic algorithm(AC?GA) that combines the improved AC and genetic algorithm was developed. In addition, by taking the transmission of remanufacturing service demand information of certain roller as example, the e ectiveness of AC?GA algorithm was analyzed and compared with that of improved AC, and the results demonstrated that AC?GA algorithm was superior to AC algorithm in aspects of information transmission delay, information transmission cost, and rate of information loss.

Automatic teaching of stereovision-guided welding robot using ant colony optimization algorithm

A binocular stereovision system with a linear laser emitter is developed to detect seam position and its orientation, employing acquired 3-dimensional seam data, the automatic teaching of welding robot is implemented using a controlling strategy based on ant colony optimization（ ACO ） algorithm, in which the angle increment of robot joint is discretized as the nodes of ACO graph and a corresponding pheromone updating strategy is presented. The experimental results for curvilinear seams and saddle-shaped seams show that the automatic teaching of welding robot can be successfully completed using the ACO-based controlling strategy under the guidance of stereovision, and the welding trajectory generated by the proposed method has higher accuracy and less setting time compared with conventional proportional-integral-differential （PID） controller and fuzzy controller.

Global path planning approach based on ant colony optimization algorithm

Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm was modified to optimize the global path. In order to simulate the real ant colonies, according to the foraging behavior of ant colonies and the characteristic of food, conceptions of neighboring area and smell area were presented. The former can ensure the diversity of paths and the latter ensures that each ant can reach the goal. Then the whole path was divided into three parts and ACO was used to search the second part path. When the three parts pathes were adjusted, the final path was found. The valid path and invalid path were defined to ensure the path valid. Finally, the strategies of the pheromone search were applied to search the optimum path. However, when only the pheromone was used to search the optimum path, ACO converges easily. In order to avoid this premature convergence, combining pheromone search and random search, a hybrid ant colony algorithm(HACO) was used to find the optimum path. The comparison between ACO and HACO shows that HACO can be used to find the shortest path.

A Pre-Selection-Based Ant Colony System for Integrated Resources Scheduling Problem at Marine Container Terminal

Marine container terminal(MCT)plays a key role in the marine intelligent transportation system and international logistics system.However,the efficiency of resource scheduling significantly influences the operation performance of MCT.To solve the practical resource scheduling problem(RSP)in MCT efficiently,this paper has contributions to both the problem model and the algorithm design.Firstly,in the problem model,different from most of the existing studies that only consider scheduling part of the resources in MCT,we propose a unified mathematical model for formulating an integrated RSP.The new integrated RSP model allocates and schedules multiple MCT resources simultaneously by taking the total cost minimization as the objective.Secondly,in the algorithm design,a pre-selection-based ant colony system(PACS)approach is proposed based on graphic structure solution representation and a pre-selection strategy.On the one hand,as the RSP can be formulated as the shortest path problem on the directed complete graph,the graphic structure is proposed to represent the solution encoding to consider multiple constraints and multiple factors of the RSP,which effectively avoids the generation of infeasible solutions.On the other hand,the pre-selection strategy aims to reduce the computational burden of PACS and to fast obtain a higher-quality solution.To evaluate the performance of the proposed novel PACS in solving the new integrated RSP model,a set of test cases with different sizes is conducted.Experimental results and comparisons show the effectiveness and efficiency of the PACS algorithm,which can significantly outperform other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Bio-Inspired Intelligent Routing in WSN: Integrating Mayfly Optimization and Enhanced Ant Colony Optimization for Energy-Efficient Cluster Formation and Maintenance

Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs)are a collection of sensor nodes distributed in space and connected through wireless communication.The sensor nodes gather and store data about the real world around them.However,the nodes that are dependent on batteries will ultimately suffer an energy loss with time,which affects the lifetime of the network.This research proposes to achieve its primary goal by reducing energy consumption and increasing the network’s lifetime and stability.The present technique employs the hybrid Mayfly Optimization Algorithm-Enhanced Ant Colony Optimization(MFOA-EACO),where the Mayfly Optimization Algorithm(MFOA)is used to select the best cluster head(CH)from a set of nodes,and the Enhanced Ant Colony Optimization(EACO)technique is used to determine an optimal route between the cluster head and base station.The performance evaluation of our suggested hybrid approach is based on many parameters,including the number of active and dead nodes,node degree,distance,and energy usage.Our objective is to integrate MFOA-EACO to enhance energy efficiency and extend the network life of the WSN in the future.The proposed method outcomes proved to be better than traditional approaches such as Hybrid Squirrel-Flying Fox Optimization Algorithm(HSFLBOA),Hybrid Social Reindeer Optimization and Differential Evolution-Firefly Algorithm(HSRODE-FFA),Social Spider Distance Sensitive-Iterative Antlion Butterfly Cockroach Algorithm(SADSS-IABCA),and Energy Efficient Clustering Hierarchy Strategy-Improved Social Spider Algorithm Differential Evolution(EECHS-ISSADE).

Ant Colony System for a Fuzzy Adjacent Multiple-Level Warehouse Layout Problem

A warehouse layout problem where the warehouse has more than one level and both the distance from the cell to the receive/exit bay and demand of item types are fuzzy variables is proposed. The problem is to find a layout with the minimum transportation cost subject to adjacency and other constraints. A fuzzy expected value model is given and an ant colony system is designed to solve the problem. Computational results indicate the efficiency and effectiveness of the method.

Extraction of affine invariant features for shape recognition based on ant colony optimization

A new approach to extraction of affine invariant features of contour image and matching strategy is proposed for shape recognition.Firstly,the centroid distance and azimuth angle of each boundary point are computed.Then,with a prior-defined angle interval,all the points in the neighbor region of the sample point are considered to calculate the average distance for eliminating noise.After that,the centroid distance ratios（CDRs） of any two opposite contour points to the barycenter are achieved as the representation of the shape,which will be invariant to affine transformation.Since the angles of contour points will change non-linearly among affine related images,the CDRs should be resampled and combined sequentially to build one-by-one matching pairs of the corresponding points.The core issue is how to determine the angle positions for sampling,which can be regarded as an optimization problem of path planning.An ant colony optimization（ACO）-based path planning model with some constraints is presented to address this problem.Finally,the Euclidean distance is adopted to evaluate the similarity of shape features in different images.The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method in shape recognition with translation,scaling,rotation and distortion.

Path Planning for Lunar Surface Robots Based on Improved Ant Colony Algorithm

In the real-world situation,the lunar missions’scale and terrain are different according to various operational regions or worksheets,which requests a more flexible and efficient algorithm to generate task paths.A multi-scale ant colony planning method for the lunar robot is designed to meet the requirements of large scale and complex terrain in lunar space.In the algorithm,the actual lunar surface image is meshed into a gird map,the path planning algorithm is modeled on it,and then the actual path is projected to the original lunar surface and mission.The classical ant colony planning algorithm is rewritten utilizing a multi-scale method to address the diverse task problem.Moreover,the path smoothness is also considered to reduce the magnitude of the steering angle.Finally,several typical conditions to verify the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed algorithm are presented.

On the Development of a Hybridized Ant Colony Optimization (HACO) Algorithm

This paper proposes a Hybridized Ant Colony Optimization (HACO) algorithm. It integrates the advantages of Ant System (AS) and Ant Colony System (ACS) of solving optimization problems. The main focus and core of the HACO algorithm are based on annexing the strengths of the AS, ACO and the Max-Min Ant System (MMAS) previously proposed by various researchers at one time or the order. In this paper, the HACO algorithm for solving optimization problems employs new Transition Probability relations with a Jump transition probability relation which indicates the point or path at which the desired optimum value has been met. Also, it brings to play a new pheromone updating rule and introduces the pheromone evaporation residue that calculates the amount of pheromone left after updating which serves as a guide to the successive ant traversing the path and diverse local search approaches. Regarding the computational efficiency of the HACO algorithm, we observe that the HACO algorithm can find very good solutions in a short time, as the algorithm has been tested on a number of combinatorial optimization problems and results shown to compare favourably with analytical results. This strength can be combined with other metaheuristic approaches in the future work to solve complex combinatorial optimization problems.

The Study of Extracting River Nets Based on Intelligence Ant Colony Algorithm on MODIS Remote Sensing Images

How to extract river nets effectively is of great significance for water resources investigation,flood forecasting and environmental monitoring,etc.In the paper,combining with ant colony algorithm,a new approach of extracting river nets on moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer(MODIS)remote sensing images was proposed through analyzing two general extraction methods of river nets.The experiment results show that river nets can be optimized by ant colony algorithm efficiently,and difference ratio between the experimental vectorgraph and the data of National Fundamental Geographic Information System is down to 8.7%.The proposed algorithm can work for extracting river nets on MODIS remote sensing images effectively.

AN ANT COLONY ALGORITHM FOR MINIMUM UNSATISFIABLE CORE EXTRACTION

Explaining the causes of infeasibility of Boolean formulas has many practical applications in electronic design automation and formal verification of hardware.Furthermore,a minimum explanation of infeasibility that excludes all irrelevant information is generally of interest.A smallest-cardinality unsatisfiable subset called a minimum unsatisfiable core can provide a succinct explanation of infea-sibility and is valuable for applications.However,little attention has been concentrated on extraction of minimum unsatisfiable core.In this paper,the relationship between maximal satisfiability and mini-mum unsatisfiability is presented and proved,then an efficient ant colony algorithm is proposed to derive an exact or nearly exact minimum unsatisfiable core based on the relationship.Finally,ex-perimental results on practical benchmarks compared with the best known approach are reported,and the results show that the ant colony algorithm strongly outperforms the best previous algorithm.

A Distributed Ant Colony Optimization Applied in Edge Detection

With the rise of image data and increased complexity of tasks in edge detection, conventional artificial intelligence techniques have been severely impacted. To be able to solve even greater problems of the future, learning algorithms must maintain high speed and accuracy through economical means. Traditional edge detection approaches cannot detect edges in images in a timely manner due to memory and computational time constraints. In this work, a novel parallelized ant colony optimization technique in a distributed framework provided by the Hadoop/Map-Reduce infrastructure is proposed to improve the edge detection capabilities. Moreover, a filtering technique is applied to reduce the noisy background of images to achieve significant improvement in the accuracy of edge detection. Close examinations of the implementation of the proposed algorithm are discussed and demonstrated through experiments. Results reveal high classification accuracy and significant improvements in speedup, scaleup and sizeup compared to the standard algorithms.

An Effective Optimization Algorithm for Ant Colony Vehicular Congestion Management

Adaptability and dynamicity are special properties of social insects derived from the decentralized behavior of the insects. Authors have come up with designs for software solution that can regulate traffic congestion in a network transportation environment. The effectiveness of various researches on traffic management has been verified through appropriate metrics. Most of the traffic management systems are centered on using sensors, visual monitoring and neural networks to check for available parking space with the aim of informing drivers beforehand to prevent traffic congestion. There has been limited research on solving ongoing traffic congestion in congestion prone areas like car park with any of the common methods mentioned. This study focus however is on a motor park, as a highly congested area when it comes to traffic. The car park has two entrance gate and three exit gates which is divided into three Isle of parking lot where cars can park. An ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) was developed as an effective management system for controlling navigation and vehicular traffic congestion problems when cars exit a motor park. The ACO based on the nature and movement of the natural ants, simulates the movement of cars out of the car park through their nearest choice exit. A car park simulation was also used for the mathematical computation of the pheromone. The system was implemented using SIMD because of its dual parallelization ability. The result showed about 95% increase on the number of vehicles that left the motor park in one second. A clear indication that pheromones are large determinants of the shortest route to take as cars followed the closest exit to them. Future researchers may consider monitoring a centralized tally system for cars coming into the park through a censored gate being.

Ant colony optimization approach for test scheduling of system on chip

It is necessary to perform the test of system on chip,the test scheduling determines the test start and finishing time of every core in the system on chip such that the overall test time is minimized.A new test scheduling approach based on chaotic ant colony algorithm is presented in this paper.The optimization model of test scheduling was studied,the model uses the information such as the scale of test sets of both cores and user defined logic.An approach based on chaotic ant colony algorithm was proposed to solve the optimization model of test scheduling.The test of signal integrity faults such as crosstalk were also investigated when performing the test scheduling.Experimental results on many circuits show that the proposed approach can be used to solve test scheduling problems.