What is an Ant colony optimization algorithm?

What are the main differences between an evolutionary algorithm and evolutionary computation?

• And is there a relation of either of them with the ant colony optimization algorithm?

• Answer:

  Evolutionary computation is a subset field of AI which is interested in  continuous optimization and combinatorial optimization problems. This process is often started with a initial population of solutions and they are chosen and optimized using heuristic function or guided random search until a suitable enough solution is produced. Evolutionary algorithms are a subset of Evolutionary computation. Evolutionary algorithms use mechanisms inspired by biological evolution, such as reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection. The quality of a solution is measured by fitness function and the solutions are combined and mutated according to there fitness to create new solutions. Like this each iteration create new solutions until suitable solution is created. Ant Colony Optimization is a technique used in evolutionary computation. It is also a swam intelligence technique, inspired by the behavior of ants.