The document discusses Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), a heuristic optimization method inspired by the behavior of ants, first proposed by M. Dorigo in 1992. It includes the main ideas, history, algorithm details, advantages, disadvantages, and definitions of key parameters such as pheromone trails and stigmergy. ACO is applied to complex problems such as the traveling salesman problem and vehicle routing, leveraging the collective behavior of ants to find optimal paths.