Ants-in-Mesh routing protocol for Wireless Mesh Network

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have recently gained a lot of popularity due to their rapid deployment and instant communication capabilities. However, as a key technology for next-generation wireless networking, WMNs lack suitable routing metrics and protocol for new features. Currently, AODV is the routing protocol used in WMNs. This paper proposes an ants-in-mesh (AIM) routing protocol for wireless mesh networks, which is based on ideas from the nature-inspired ant colony optimization (ACO) framework. AIM agent distributes forward ants on demand to search for the routes to the destination and then activates corresponding backward ants to confirm the routes and update the pheromone. AIM enables only the destination to choose k multiple paths based on ants pheromone, which is based on several link-relevant quality of service (QoS) metrics. AIM agent maintains status of local links by exchanging hello messages periodically. Simulation results show that AIM outperforms AODV in terms of packet delivery ratio and total end-to-end delay.