Navigation, Routing and Nature-Inspired Optimization

Navigation abilities are crucial for survival in nature, and there are a wide range of sophisticated abilities concerning animal navigation and migration. Many applications are related to navigation and routing problems, which are in turn related to optimization problems. This chapter provides an overview of navigation in nature, navigation and routing problems as well as their mathematical formulations. We will then introduce some nature-inspired algorithms for solving optimization problems with discussions about their main characteristics and the ways of solution representations.