Path Heuristics Using ACO for Inter-domain Routing in Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

We investigate the use of biologically inspired routing heuristics in the field of inter-domain routing in sensor networks. Instead of relying on classical topology control techniques for routing in sensor networks, the use of geographical coordinates has been investigated for self-organized and fully distributed message forwarding. However, the identification of the nodes’ positions is either expensive in terms of necessary equipment or message exchange. Therefore, the use of virtual coordinates has been investigated in this domain. The key advantage is that these virtual identifiers can also be used for data management similar as in a DHT. It is, however, extremely challenging to provide routing functionality between multiple independent networks or network domains. In previous work, we developed the VCP that provides all the means for creating and maintaining such virtual identifiers and that is even able to route between neighboring network domains. This paper extends VCP by providing a generalized inter-domain routing framework using ACO for optimizing routes between multiple network domains. In extensive simulations, we evaluated this routing bio-inspired heuristic. The obtained results clearly demonstrate that ACO is very efficient even in highly mobile scenarios.