Ant-based query processing for replicated events in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks are often deployed in diverse application specific contexts and one unifying view is to treat them essentially as distributed databases. The simplest mechanism to obtain information from this kind of database is to flood queries for named data within the network and obtain the relevant responses from sources. However, if the queries are issued for replicated data, the simple approach can be highly inefficient. As sensor networks are uniquely characterized by limited energy availability and low memory, alternative strategies need to be examined for this kind of queries. A novel query processing approach using distributed Multiple Ant Colonies algorithm with positive interaction is presented in this paper, in which ants adjust individual behavior via cooperation to make colony behavior intelligent, demanding merely local information to find named data efficiently and determine the number and allocation of event replicas adaptively. Theoretically and experimentally, the results clearly show that the proposed protocol is more flexible and energy-efficient than existing algorithms.