Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objectives: This paper deals with the various tasks of image processing which could be achieved with the help of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) an important field of soft computing. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Soft Computing refers to the techniques of problem solving which are inspired from the human behavior, natural genetics and the behavior of insects. All these techniques are parallel computational techniques which aim to handle imprecise, incomplete, non-linear and complex data. ACO, a field of SC, is a computational intelligence based approach which is used to solve combinatorial optimization problem. Findings: The simplicity and optimal approach of ACO has led its applicability to routing, scheduling, sub-set, assignment and classification problems. Focus of the current paper is onto the use of Ant Colony Optimization in the field of Image Processing. Application/Improvements: Edge detection, edge linking, feature extraction, segmentation and image compression are the various image processing tasks in which ACO has been applied successfully. The details pertaining to each of the approach have been discussed. Benefits of using ACO over the conventional techniques have also been presented.

Keywords: Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Soft Computing Image Processing