In this study, a grid-based continuous Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm was applied to the inverse problem of a one-dimensional (1-D) coupled radiation and conduction heat transfer. To overcome the local convergence of the Basic Ant Colony Optimization (BACO) algorithm for continuous domain problems, a Homogenous Ant Colony Optimization (HACO) algorithm was developed. To illustrate the performances of these algorithms, the thermal conductivity, absorption coefficient and scattering coefficient of the 1-D homogeneous semi-transparent medium were retrieved for four test cases. The sensitivity coefficient with respect to the inversion parameters was analyzed, on the basis of which the objective function was designed. The temperature and radiative heat flux simulated by the Finite Volume Method (FVM) were served as input for the inverse analysis. The HACO algorithm was demonstrated to be effective and robust, which has the potential to be implemented in various inverse heat transfer problems. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.