ASAR: Ant-based spectrum aware routing for cognitive radio networks

The new dynamic spectrum environment in cognitive radio networks necessities novel routing protocols which should be spectrum-aware, self-configured, high-adaptive and robust to match the dynamic nature of Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN) and exploit the available spectrum efficiently. In this paper, we present ASAR, which is a biologically inspired routing solution for CRN. In our routing algorithm, paths are discovered, observed and learned by guided ants communicating in an indirect way. F-ants are used to exploit spectrum feasible paths to the destinations and B-ants are used to collect information about the network and update routing table in the nodes. Furthermore, a reinforcement learning function is integrated into our algorithm for accelerating convergence. Simulation results show the validity of our algorithm in solving routing problems under high spectrum dynamic conditions.