Review of swarm intelligence routing algorithms in wireless mobile ad hoc networks

In the new millennium there has been a proliferation of mobile devices which include the likes of personal digital assistances (PDAs), laptops and smart phones. These mobile devices have a high market penetration rate even in the developing world. When two or more mobile devices within a radio communication range are able to communicate with each other a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is formed. These devices are usually battery powered and use a multi-hopping technique to communicate with each other devices without the assistance of any infrastructure like base stations. MANETs are usually deployed when there is a need to make temporal emergency communications, for example medical rescue and battlefield communications when there is no immediate infrastructure present. Swarm intelligence techniques, which are inspired by biology e.g. ants, termites and bees foraging for food, can be artificially simulated and utilised to solving real wireless network problems. This paper presents an overview of swarm intelligence routing techniques that are applicable to MANETs. The paper will investigate methods of swarm intelligence algorithms which in turn can be used to effectively route data packets on a wireless MANET.