Energy-efficient multicasting in wireless ad-hoc networks: An ant colony optimization approach

In wireless ad-hoc networks, where nodes are often equipped with batteries, energy is a scarce resource. Therefore, power consumption of network operations is critical and subject to optimization. One of the fundamental problems in ad-hoc networks is multicasting. In this work we consider the so-called minimum energy multicast (MEM) problem, which can be stated as a combinatorial optimization problem. We develop an ant colony optimization metaheuristic for networks with omni-directional and directional antennas. The results show that our algorithm consistently outperforms existing techniques.