The Application Of Ant Colony Algorithm In Image Segmentation

At the end of 1990s ant colony algorithm is proposed by Italian scholars M. Dorigo, who is inspired by the ant finding the shortest road from the nest to the destination. It is a new kind of heuristic searching algorithm after the tabu search, simulated annealing algorithm, genetic algorithm and artificial neural net and so on.Ant colony algorithm not only has the characteristics of intelligent search, global optimization but also has the characteristics of stability positive feedback, distributed computing and combination with certain heuristic algorithm. Stability is good , modify the algorithm on the base of the the ant colony algorithm modle , then it can be used into other problem. Positive feedback makes it quickly to find better solutions. Distributed computing makes it easily to come true parallel, the unit communicates and pass the information , this is good for finding the better solutions, and not easily plunging into the partial optimization. Combination with certain heuristic algorithm can improve the capability of the algorithm. It is used in combinatorial optimization problem successfully. Some research and application prove the superiority of the ant colony solving the complex optimized problem (especially the discrete optimized problem) .Now the research is mostly in Belgium, Italy, Germany and so on. In China the research began at the end of 1998, some schools and graduate schools in Shanghai, Beijing and the northeast made this work, they mostly used the ant colony algorithm to solve TSP problem.Image segmentation method is traced to 1950s. It is the most basal and important domain. Now image segmentation method is regarded as a combination optimization problem, and uses a series of optimized strategy to complete the image segmentation task.At first the essay introduces the ant colony algorithm basic principle, the realization method, analyzes the ant colony algorithm characteristic, it proposes a series of improved algorithm. And introduces many kinds of the application in the optimized problem. Then it elaborates the image segmentation principle and the classification, and introduces some conventional segmentation methods.According to the characteristic of ant colony algorithm and image segmentation, combines the ant colony algorithm and image segmentation. Segmentation problem is regarded as a combination optimization problem, ant colony algorithm is anoptimized method, so the ant colony algorithm is used into image segmentation is feasible.Finally, the essay makes the summary and the expectation.This essay uses the optimization of ant colony algorithm to find the optimal Threshold, then accomplishes the image segmentation .