On the congestion and shortcut problems of ant-based routing for mobile ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) are characterized by the unpredictable change in the quality of wireless communication due to node movement and failure. To cope with such a special characteristic, various ant-based routing algorithms have been proposed for MANET. However, these algorithms still have several problems unsolved, including the congestion problem and the shortcut problem. In this paper, we present a new ant-based routing algorithm, called ant-based routing algorithm with admission control and noise encouraged route-selection (ARACNE). The algorithm adopts two mechanisms, called admission control (AC) and noise encouraged route-selection (NE), to solve the congestion problem and the shortcut problem, respectively. Simulation results show that both mechanisms can improve the performance of ant-based routing algorithm for MANET by reducing the routing overhead and increasing the packet delivery rate.