A Distributed Location Service for MANET Using Swarm Intelligence

In this paper, a location service algorithm using swarm intelligence techniques, called SLS has been developed to provide location service to all MANET (Mobile Ad Hoc Network) routing protocols. MANET is a network with mobile nodes without Internet like infrastructure where every mobile node acts as a router. The location service is intended to solve the existing problems in MANET due to frequent movements of nodes. A node can know its location using GPS or triangulation based on radio signal characteristics or hardcoded location information if it is a stationary node. There are some location services available for MANET, however, to the best of our knowledge, SLS is the only technique to learn the location of other nodes intelligently and efficiently using swarm concept. SLS has been applied to the Swarm Autonomous Routing Algorithm (SARA) protocol and simulation is performed in QualNet The simulation results have showed better network performance using SLS than without using it.