SudokuBee: An Artificial Bee Colony-based Approach in Solving Sudoku puzzles

Sudoku is a popular newspaper puzzle that has become an international phenomenon. Sudoku which means “single digits” is a logicbasedcombinatorial puzzle with rules that are quite simple. Several algorithms have been used to solve this combinatorial optimization problem. This paper explores the possibility of using the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, a relatively new swarm-based optimization algorithmthat mimics the foraging behaviour of bees, in solving Sudoku puzzles. The experiment results show that the ABC-based Sudoku solver has anexcellent performance in solving the 6 x 6, 9 x 9 and 12 x 12 Sudoku puzzles with varying levels of difficulty. Thus, the results reveal the potential of the ABC algorithm in solving Sudoku puzzles