A Review of Nature-Inspired Algorithms

The study of bionics bridges the functions, biological structures and organizational principles found in nature with our modern technologies, and numerous mathematical and metaheuristic algorithms have been developed along with the knowledge transferring process from the lifeforms to the human technologies. Output of bionics study includes not only physical products, but also various computation methods that can be applied in different areas. People have learnt from biological systems and structures to design and develop a number of different kinds of optimisation algorithms that have been widely used in both theoretical study and practical applications. In this paper, a number of selected nature-inspired algorithms are systematically reviewed and analyzed. Though the paper is mainly focused on the original principle behind each of the algorithm, their applications are also discussed.