Review on Ant Colony Optimization Routing Algorithms in MANETs

Abstract

Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a dynamic multihop wireless network which is established by a set of mobile nodes on a shared wireless channel. One of the major issues in MANET is routing due to the mobility of the nodes. Routing means the act of moving information across a network from a source to a destination. The challenging task in MANET is to find most efficient routing due to the changing topology and the dynamic behavior of the nodes in MANET. It has been found that Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a special kind of optimization technique having characterization of Swarm Intelligence (SI) which is highly suitable for finding the adaptive routing for such type of volatile network . ACO algorithms are inspired by a foraging behavior of group of ants which are able to find optimal connection of the ant’s nest with the source of food. ACO routing algorithms use simple agents called artificial ants which establish optimum paths between source and destination that communicate indirectly with each other by means of stigmerg . Ants-based routing algorithms have attracted the attention of researchers because they are more robust, reliable, and scalable than other conventional routing algorithms. Since they do not involve extra message exchanges to maintain paths when network topology changes, they are suitable for mobile ad-hoc networks where nodes move dynamically and topology changes frequently .In this paper a detailed survey of different ACO based routing algorithms is presented.