---
title: "Particle swarm optimization research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “particle swarm optimization” appeared in 1,292 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (873), operations research (321) and economics (39)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/particle-swarm-optimization
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/particle-swarm-optimization.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “particle swarm optimization” appeared in 1,292 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (873), operations research (321) and economics (39). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “particle swarm optimization”

Research on “particle swarm optimization” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “particle swarm optimization” appeared in 1,292 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (873), operations research (321) and economics (39).
- 139 of them were published in 2025, against 99 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Beijing University of Technology (8), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (8) and South China University of Technology (8).
- The journals publishing most of them were Expert Systems with Applications (131), Neural Computing and Applications (79) and Computers & Industrial Engineering (39).
- The most-cited of them is “Equilibrium optimizer: A novel optimization algorithm” (Knowledge-Based Systems, 2019), with 2,345 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 63 | 69 | 64 | 85 | 100 | 124 | 110 | 90 | 90 | 78 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 32 | 31 | 20 | 30 | 41 | 37 | 34 | 36 | 36 | 24 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 99 | 105 | 94 | 125 | 152 | 170 | 157 | 140 | 139 | 111 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 131 |
| 2 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 79 |
| 3 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 39 |
| 4 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 27 |
| 5 | [IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-evolutionary-computation.md) | 23 |
| 6 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 21 |
| 7 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 19 |
| 8 | [Knowledge and Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-and-information-systems.md) | 13 |
| 9 | [Neural Networks](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-networks.md) | 13 |
| 10 | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 12 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Beijing University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-university-of-technology.md) | 8 |
| 2 | [Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanjing-university-of-information-science-and-technology.md) | 8 |
| 3 | [South China University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/south-china-university-of-technology.md) | 8 |
| 4 | [China University of Mining and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/china-university-of-mining-and-technology.md) | 7 |
| 5 | Mansoura University | 7 |
| 6 | [Northeastern University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/northeastern-university.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [Shanghai University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shanghai-university.md) | 7 |
| 8 | [Wuhan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/wuhan-university.md) | 7 |
| 9 | Amirkabir University of Technology | 6 |
| 10 | [Beihang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beihang-university.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 243 |
| 2 | India | 76 |
| 3 | Iran | 40 |
| 4 | United States | 36 |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 31 |
| 6 | Turkey | 27 |
| 7 | Australia | 21 |
| 8 | Saudi Arabia | 20 |
| 9 | Egypt | 18 |
| 10 | France | 17 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [genetic algorithm](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/genetic-algorithm.md) | 66 |
| 2 | [metaheuristic optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/metaheuristic-optimization.md) | 58 |
| 3 | [hyperparameter optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/hyperparameter-optimization.md) | 50 |
| 4 | [feature selection](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/feature-selection.md) | 37 |
| 5 | hybrid metaheuristic | 36 |
| 6 | [multi-objective optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/multi-objective-optimization.md) | 32 |
| 7 | grey wolf optimizer | 29 |
| 8 | differential evolution | 22 |
| 9 | ant colony optimization | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,345 | 27.9 | [Equilibrium optimizer: A novel optimization algorithm](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2019.105190) | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 2019-11-06 | Afshin Faramarzi, Mohammad Heidarinejad, Brent Stephens et al. |
| 2 | 720 | 6.8 | [Adaptive network based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) training approaches: a comprehensive survey](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-017-9610-2) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2018-01-03 | Derviş Karaboğa, Ebubekir Kaya |
| 3 | 700 | 7.0 | [Dendritic Neuron Model With Effective Learning Algorithms for Classification, Approximation, and Prediction](https://doi.org/10.1109/tnnls.2018.2846646) | [IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-neural-networks-and-learning-systems.md) | 2018-07-10 | Shangce Gao, MengChu Zhou, Yirui Wang et al. |
| 4 | 429 | 3.7 | [Surrogate-Assisted Cooperative Swarm Optimization of High-Dimensional Expensive Problems](https://doi.org/10.1109/tevc.2017.2675628) | [IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-evolutionary-computation.md) | 2017-03-01 | Chaoli Sun, Yaochu Jin, Ran Cheng et al. |
| 5 | 363 | 3.6 | [On the exploration and exploitation in popular swarm-based metaheuristic algorithms](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-018-3592-0) | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 2018-07-03 | Kashif Hussain, Mohd Najib Mohd Salleh, Shi Cheng et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “particle swarm optimization”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/particle-swarm-optimization

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-particle-swarm-optimization,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “particle swarm optimization”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/particle-swarm-optimization}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).