This dissertation is a study on the use of swarm methods for optimization,
and is divided into three main parts. In the rst part, two novel swarm metaheuristic
algorithms|named Survival Sub-swarms Adaptive Particle Swarm Op-
timization (SSS-APSO) and Survival Sub-swarms Adaptive Particle Swarm Opti-
mization with velocity-line bouncing (SSS-APSO-vb)|are developed. These new
algorithms present self-adaptive inertia weight and time-varying adaptive swarm
topology techniques. The objective of these new approaches is to avoid premature
convergence by executing the exploration and exploitation stages simultaneously.
Although proposed PSOs are fundamentally based on commonly modeled behaviors
of swarming creatures, the novelty is that the whole swarm may divide into
many sub-swarms in order to nd a good source of food or to
ee from predators.
This behavior allows the particles to disperse through the search space (diversi-
cation) and the sub-swarm with the worst performance dies out while that the
best performance grows by producing ospring. The tendency of an individual
particle to avoid collision with other particles by means of simple neighborhood
rules is retained in this algorithm. Numerical experiments show that the new
approaches outperform other competitive algorithms by providing the best solutions
on a suite of standard test problem with a much higher consistency than the
algorithms compared