1
Ant Colony Optimization for
Mobile Ad-hoc Networks
Ajay C Solai Jawahar
Department of Electrical Engineering, Rutgers
ajaychak@eden.rutgers.edu
Abstract—The rapidly changing and unpredictable nature of
Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) pose a wide range of
challenges like efficient routing, load distribution, congestion
avoidance, energy consumption, etc. Though a number of
routing protocols exists, which aim to provide effective routing
in MANETs, very few address the need or provide a plausible
solution for overall network management through routing in
MANETs.
This project attempts to explore the phenomenon of
emergence found in natural environments like harvester ants
and aims to develop a similar routing protocol in manets with
simple node-level management behavior resulting in overall
system optimization. The proposed algorithm provides a
probabilistic multi-path routing algorithm and incorporates
path pheromones scents which constantly update the goodness of
choosing a particular path based on congestion measure in
addition to shortest-path metrics.
.
Index Terms—ACO Routing, Emergence, Mobile Ad-hoc
Networks
I. INTRODUCTION
M OBILE Ad-hoc Networks have grown in popularity
over the recent advancements in technology as they
possess the ability to provide instant wireless networking
solution in places/situations where no pre-deployed
infrastructure exists. Manets prove to be an attractive solution
in a wide of environments ranging from scattered military
deployment to simple network of a group of notebooks in an
office meeting. In all cases, there is a need for a group of
nodes (laptops, desktops, pdas, cell phones, etc) to group
together and create a network which can offer services like
file-sharing, messaging, resource sharing, etc.
Hence the primary goal in a mobile network is to efficiently
establish one or more routes between two nodes so that they
can communicate reliably. Such a network is characterized by
the following challenges.
1) The network topology can change dynamically due to
the random movement of nodes.
2) Also any node may leave/join the network and the
protocol must adapt accordingly.
3) Although no guarantee of service can be provided, the
protocol must be able to maximize the reliability of
packet in the network for the given conditions.
With these factors in mind, the key parameters to
face while designing a routing protocol are
1) Effective Routing
This is the foremost requirement of the protocol – to
successful discover and deliver the packet from the
source to the destination. Some of the measures for
effective routing include Packet Delivery Ratio,
percentage of Optimal Routes taken and average end-to-
end delay.
2) Congestion Avoidance
Strongly coupled with the previous parameter, this is
to ensure that the routing protocol does not congest a
particular route/node thereby leading to packet drops or
even failure of the nodes.
3) Energy Consumption
Most of the mobile nodes are laptops, pdas and other
portable devices which have a strong requirement for
energy consumption. Hence the routing algorithm must
minimize the energy consumption of the individual
nodes.
4) Load Balancing
Some of the nodes may be strategically located
resulting in being present in most of the optimal routes of
communication. Such nodes get unfairly overloaded
leading to network congestion. Hence there is a need for
balancing the loads on the individual nodes, though
compromising on the optimal routes, thereby resulting on
fair load distribution.
Network Management of such a mobile network is hence a
very big challenge. Also the fast changing nature and the ad-
hoc necessity of the network prevents the choice of a
Centralized Solution which can decide the best route to route
packets and at the same time minimize the different
parameters like congestion, load, etc. Also no single node can
take up the job of centralized manager due to the limited
energy and processing capabilities of mobile nodes. Hence
this has resulted in the need for a distributed approach which
involves limited processing and power from the individual
nodes but which work towards a concerted goal of routing
and network management.
Different routing protocols have been developed for
Manets, some proactive like DSDV and some on-demand like
AODV and DSR. However most of these protocols only

attempt to solve one challenge – Effective Routing – and
provide algorithms for minimal end-to-end delay, maximum
throughput, etc.
Hence there is a need to develop a unified routing protocol,
which also results in overall network management in addition
to just packet routing. In this attempt, this project looks at the
characteristics of Emergence behavior exhibited in natural
environments by studying the emergence behavior in ants and
presents a unified solution for network management through
routing.
II. EMERGENCE IN HARVESTER ANTS
The phenomenon of emergence found in natural systems
show how simple behavioral patterns from participants give
rise to complex self-regulatory behavior of the entire
system[1]. The swift co-ordinated flight of a group of birds
with very little visual/vocal communication and the concerted
effort of an ant colony in gathering food, building nests, etc
are some of the vivid examples of emergence in natural
world.
A colony of harvester ants have a wide range of duties
like collecting food, building/guarding the nest, removing the
dead ants, etc and have very simple one-to-one
communication. Here the individual messages passed between
ants are very insignificant, but the collective messages help in
coordinated work control of ants without the presence of a
centralized control system.
For communication between each other, ants use scents
called pheromones. They can produce few different types of
pheromones – usually one each to signify different work
categories like collecting food trails, signifying emergency,
Fig. 1. Route Discovery Phase, shows the propagation of Forward ANTS from
source to destination. Also shows the calculation of Route Efficiency Metric.
Source: Internet
moving dead ants, etc.
Let us consider the example of food collection. Initially the
ants spread out in all directions in search of food. When an
ant finds a food source, it collects the food and on returning
back, marks the trail with Pheromones. These pheromones
are dropped at regular intervals to act as a trail. Also the
pheromones slowly disappear over time. So they act as a
guiding trail to other ants which begin to follow this path. In
the same way, ants which trace a particular path strengthen
2
the scents of pheromones on the path. In this way, a number
of paths might exist from the nest to the food source. Also the
shortest path will be the one with the highest pheromone
scent (due to shorter round-trip time) (see Fig 1) and also
naturally the path with the highest concentration of ants.
At the same time, it must be noted that usually multiple
trails exist from the nest to the food source. When a
previously short route get blocked/lengthened due to an
obstacle en route, the alternate short route get strengthened
with higher pheromone content due to shorter end-to-end
travel time and more ants move to this route. Hence the path
can also dynamically adapt to fast changes in the
environment.
III. ROUTING ALGORITHM
The Routing Algorithm proposed is an on-demand reactive
algorithm similar to AODV/DSR but has been built to take
into consideration all the challenges in Manets, thereby
providing active network management into addition to simple
routing.
This section describes in detail the proposed algorithm and
how route discovery and route maintenance is performed.
The current implementation of the project tries to optimize
the following factors
- Efficient Routing (measured by throughput and
optimal routes)
- Congestion Avoidance (measured by Node Level
Congestion Measurement)
- Load Balancing (caused by multi-path routing)
The current proposal does not do explicit energy
management in the nodes but ensures fair energy distribution
by using a balanced-load algorithm.
A. Node Level Congestion Measurement
Measuring the congestion level at a particular node has
always been a difficult task. A number of approaches have
been taken and different measures have been considered to
quantize congestion. In this project, the scheme for
measurement of Node Congestion Metric is as discussed in
the paper “Accurate and Energy-efficient Congestion Level
Measurement in Ad-Hoc Networks” [2].
Every node calculates a Node Congestion Metric which
gives an indication on the amount of congestion at the node.
This metric varies between 0 (Very High Congestion) to 1
(Least Congestion). The Node Congestion Metric is
calculated based on the following factors
• Buffer Occupancy
• Channel Load Measurement
• Packet Drop Rate

B. Route Discovery
When a source needs to send a packet to a particular node,
it first checks the cache for existing routes. When no routes
are known, it broadcasts Forward Request ANTS which are
propagated through the network till it reaches the destination.
This process can be compared to ants initially spreading out
in all directions in search of food source.
When a packet reaches the destination, the destination
node sends a Backward ANT for every Forward Request
Fig. 1. Route Discovery Phase, shows the propagation of Forward ANTS from
source to destination. Also shows the calculation of Route Efficiency Metric.
ANTs that it receives. Thus when different Forward ANTs
reach the destination through different routes, the destination
sends a Backward ANT for each of them. This is to ensure
that multiple paths exist between the source and the
destination. Synonymously, in the case of ants, initially
multiple paths exist between the nest and the food source.
Slowly the best path (which for ants is the shortest path) gets
strengthened through increased pheromone count.
The Backward ANTs from the destination reach the source
Fig. 1. Route Discovery Phase, shows the propagation of Backward ANTS
from destination to source
and the source stores the route in the cache. Hence this way,
multiple routes to the destination will be stored in the source.
Next the source needs to decide the best route to follow. In
most conventional techniques like DSR/AODV, the source
chooses the shortest path to the destination with the
assumption that the same helps in reducing energy and time.
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Also similarly in the case of harvester ants, the shortest path
(which has the highest pheromone scent) serves as the best
path for the ants.
However research has shown that in MANETs , the best
path for routing (considering the overall network benefit as
well as node benefit) is not necessarily the shortest path but
instead the path which optimizes number of hops (length of
path), congestion along path and load balancing.
Hence building on the existing Node Congestion Metric,
this algorithm calculates Route Efficiency Metric (REM)
based on the Individual Node Congestion values.
C. Calculation of Route-Efficiency Metric
Whenever a node sends a packet (Forward Request ANT,
Backward ANT, normal data packet, etc), the packet has a
metric value called Route Efficiency Metric (REM). Initially
the source who originates the packet sets it to 1 (Minimum
Congestion), although the Node Congestion value of source
may be less than 1.
When the packet is being forwarded/broadcasted, all the
intermediate nodes multiply the REM with the individual
Node Congestion Metrics. Then the REM can be defined as
Route Efficiency Metric = ∏ (Node Congestion values of
intermediate nodes from source to destination)
Fig 2. shows the calculation of Route Efficiency Metric
during the propagation of Forward ANTS and Fig 3. shows
the Route Efficiency Metric being piggybacked on the
Backward ANTS from the destination to the source.
How does this work? This calculation is based on the
assumption that the individual node congestion measure is
nothing but a probability that a node can forward a packet
successfully to the next hop. Hence the probability of sending
a packet successfully from a particular source to the
destination is nothing but the product of the individual
probability measures.
However this does arise a question that since Node
Congestion Metric is considered as a linear measure, the
results may not be correct as high values of Node Congestion
(say 0.6 or 0.8) have the same impact on the overall
congestion as low values (like 0.1 or 0.05). Hence the
algorithm converts the linear weights of Node Congestion
Metric to a non-linear weight using the following equation
New Node Congestion = (1 – (1- Node Congestion)3 )
The following diagram show the conversion of Node
Congestion value from linear to a non-linear scale so that
higher values of Node Congestion have lesser impact and as
the congestion decreases, it has a much greater impact.

Fig. 1. Route Discovery Phase, shows the propagation of Backward ANTS
from destination to source
Hence when a destination node receives a Forward
Request ANT, it takes the REM values and piggybacks the
same with the Backward ANT. Hence a source node receives
not only the route, but also the REM value for that route. The
REM value for a route is stored in the cache along with the
route.
D. Probabilistic Route Choosing Algorithm
Usually when a source wants to find a route to the
destination, it chooses the route which is the best path
(usually shortest path or minimal congestion path, etc).
However studying ant behavior, although the best path
(shortest path) has the maximum pheromone concentration
and hence maximum ants in the path, there always are small
trails of other non-efficient routes which exist between the
nest and the food source.
A similar technique will be of great use in MANETs, more
so because of the ever-changing nature of the network and
hence to need to keep other routes active for contingency in
case the best route gets overloaded or goes down due to a
faulty node.
Hence this algorithm uses a Probabilistic Route Choosing
Algorithm in which initially the pheromone scents is
calculated for every route (to the particular destination) and
then probabilistically a route is chosen based on the
Pheromone values. Initially the pheromone count is
calculated as below using the REM value and the length of
the route. This is done so as to reach a compromise between
the shortest route and the least congested route.
Pheromone Count of Route = (REM)L
where REM = Route Efficiency Metric
L = Length of the Route
Similarly the pheromone count is calculated for all the
routes. Next probabilities are assigned to the individual routes
based on their pheromone values.
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Probability of Route
= Pheromone Count of Route / ∑ (Pheromone count
of all routes to destination)
Once the probabilities are assigned to the individual routes,
the node then chooses a route as per this probability. Hence
good routes (based on length and congestion) have higher
probability of being chosen while all alternate routes are still
kept fresh.
E. Route Maintenance
Route Maintenance plays a very important role in manets
as the network keeps dynamically changing and routes found
good during discovery may turn to be bad due to congestion,
signal strength, etc.
Hence when a node starts sending packets to the
destination using the Probabilistic Route Finding algorithm
explained above, it is essential to find the goodness of a route
regularly and update the pheromone counts for the different
routes at the source nodes. To accomplish this, when a
destination node receives a packet, it probabilistically sends a
Congestion Update message to the source which informs the
source of the REM value for that route. This Congestion
Update message also serves an ACK to the source. These
Congestion Update messages are sent probabilistically (say
with prob of 0.1), so that they have minimum overhead and
do not increase much the congestion if the route is already
overloaded.
On receiving the Congestion Update message from the
destination, the source updates the cache with the REM
values as shown below
New REM value = α * (Old REM Value) + (1- α ) *
(Received REM value)
The above is done so that a particular fluctuation in a Node
which may result in abnormal Node Congestion and hence
REM value does not affect the overall REM value for that
route.
Also this makes sure that the pheromone counts for the
active routes are constantly being refreshed and re-
strengthened so that better choices are made which adapt to
the ever dynamic nature of the mobile networks. Hence the
probability of a route being selected constantly changes as the
REM value for the route changes. Further work is suggested
in the future to incorporate the Energy Consumption values
for the individual routes so that the choice also optimizes the
same.
The suggested algorithm strives to reduce packet loss, as it
keeps track of queue length, channel load, buffer, etc for all
the nodes en route and automatically reduces traffic through a
route on sensing congestion and uses alternate routes.

F. Comparison with Existing ACO Algorithms
Ant Colony Optimization algorithms and their applications
in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks have been studied for long. A
couple of popular algorithms which aim to alleviate the
problems in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks are the AntHocNet [3]
Algorithm and ARA (Ant colony-based Routing Algorithm)
[4].
Both the routing algorithms extensively use the concept of
pheromones and pheromone tables. AntHocNet, a more
lucrative solution of the two, is a hybrid algorithm, which has
both proactive and reactive features. Hybrid Algorithms,
despite their better performance are not very popular due to
the heavy overhead of the proactive algorithm (continuous
exchange of routing information, etc between neighbors).
Also AntHocNet uses end-to-end delay as a metric to
calculate congestion at a node, which may not yield accurate
results as end-to-end is affected by both congestion as well as
the length of the route from source to destination.
ARA is an on-demand routing algorithm similar to DSR,
AODV and uses pheromone tables at each node to calculate
the best route to reach the destination. However the
pheromones merely enhance routes without any dependency
on congestion, load or energy metrics. Such a mechanism
always enhance the shortest routes although it might be
congested or non-efficient in terms of energy/load
distribution.
Hence the suggested algorithm, being on-demand, has low
overhead and at the same time tries to optimize all the
parameters (energy, congestion, load balancing) of the
network along-with providing efficient routing. Also the
congestion measurement algorithm suggested helps in
accurate measurement of congestion at a node based on
multiple factors as buffer length, drop ratio and channel
occupancy.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The proposed algorithm has been evaluated though a
number of simulation tests and compared with DSR[8] On-
demand routing algorithm.
A. Simulation Environment
The simulation of the algorithm was carried out using ns-2
(version 2.28) simulator [6],[7]. Two different scenarios are
considered in this case, one with 10 nodes in a 400x400m2
network and the other with 50 nodes in a 670x670m2
network. All simulations are carried out for 250 seconds. The
sources in the network are CBR (constant bit rate) traffic
generators. The data packets used for simulations are 1024
bytes.
The MAC layer uses the 802.11b protocol for the wireless
standard. The radios use Two Ray Ground propagation model
and have a receiving range of 250 metres.
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All the nodes in the network are constantly moving and
have a random speed selected in the range of 0-5m/sec.
The key performance metrics evaluated in the simulations
are
• Packet Delivery Ratio (Ratio of number of packets
delivered to number of packets sent)
• Average Hop / Packet (Ratio of number of individual
packets to number of messages sent)
• Routing Overhead (Ratio of number of control packets to
number of messages sent)
• Energy , Load Distribution (Varied in direct relation to
the number of packets forwarded/sent by the individual
nodes)
B. Simulation Results
The first set of simulations is performed on a 10-node
network in a 400x400m2 area. The results are the average of
the performance metrics over 3 simulations with different 10-
node scenarios with the same traffic. The traffic load here are
2 sources sending 1024 bytes data at an interval of 0.1
seconds.
The following table shows the comparison of the
performance of the proposed algorithm with the DSR routing
algorithm.
TABLE I
10-NODES, 2 TRAFFIC SOURCES
Metric DSR ANT Algorithm
Packet Delivery 99.962 99.936
Ratio
Average Hop / 2.388 2.402
Packet
Overhead
Control Packets 17 448
Message Packets 7762 7836
Routing Overhead 0.22% 5.72%
From Table 1, we see that the performance of both ANT
Algorithm and DSR are similar in terms of packet delivery
ratio and average hops. However the ANT algorithm has
higher overhead due to the continuous exchange of Backward
ANTS in the route maintenance phase for updating the
goodness of a particular route.
However the biggest difference is in load balancing and
energy management. Fig 4 shows the number of packets
sent/forwarded by each node in the network. The DSR results
show a chaotic distribution of packets amongst the nodes.
Some of the nodes (nodes 8 & 9) forward an extremely high
number of packets results in high energy utilization while
others are relatively idle. However in the Ant Algorithm,
since multiple routes are used to send packets, the loads are
even distributed amongst most of the nodes. Notice that some
nodes have very low packets sent/forwarded as they do not lie
in the route from source to destination.
 6

Packet Flow Analysis Also some nodes handle heavy traffic forwarding (more than
18000
15000 packets). However in Ant Algorithm, more nodes
16000
(about 22%) are involved in active traffic forwarding and also
14000
the traffic is more distributed amongst the nodes. Thus Ant
Number of Packets sent/forwarded

Algorithm provides better load and energy balancing than

12000
DSR.
10000
DSR
ANT-DSR
8000

6000
V. CONCLUSION & FUTURE WORK
4000
Mobile Ad-hoc Networks provide a wide array of
2000
challenges in routing and network management due to their
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
dynamic and distributed nature and various protocols have
Node Number been studied and implemented in view of these needs and
Fig. 4. Load Distribution in a 10-Node Scenario challenges. In this paper, an alternate approach inspired by
concepts of emergence and self-organization in biological
systems, has been discussed and implemented.
The second set of simulations is performed on a 50-node
The approach tries to optimize routing by finding the best
network in 670x670m2 field area. Also 3 cbr traffic sources
shortest path, optimize congestion by incorporating
are used which send packets of size 1024 bytes at an interval
congestion metrics in route discovery and maintenance and
of 0.1 seconds.
also optimize energy and load balancing by using the
TABLE 2 probabilistic route choosing algorithm. Also the comparison
50-NODES, 3 TRAFFIC SOURCES
of this algorithm with de-facto DSR algorithm has been
Metric DSR ANT Algorithm presented.
Packet Delivery 94.92 99.3
This algorithm has a lot of scope for future improvements.
Ratio Though the algorithm has better control over congestion and
Average Hop / 2.756 3.122 load, its adaptability to dynamic node movements is not very
Packet
Overhead different from existing algorithms. Hence future work lies in
Control Packets 122 1421 incorporating factors like signal strength into the route
Message Packets 18726 18850 metrics so as to predict link breaks before they actually occur
Routing Overhead 0.65% 7.54%
and redirect to other routes. Also extensive testing needs to
be performed using the current algorithm under varying
traffic and movement scenarios.
From Table 2, we see that although the ANT algorithm has
a higher routing overhead than DSR, it has a better
performance in terms of packet delivery ratio. Also the REFERENCES
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Node Number

Fig. 5. Load Distribution in 50-node scenario. Note: Only nodes with more
than 500 packets forwards are plotted in the graph.