QoS-aware ant routing with colored pheromones in wireless mesh networks

Inspired by the collective foraging behavior of specific ant species, ant-based routing algorithms are able to find optimal or near optimal packet routes for Wireless Mesh Networks. Ant-based algorithms work by deploying artificial pheromone at the network paths, which is then used for future routing decisions. Using this approach, the routing can be optimized according to different criteria like packet delay, delay jitter, or maximum bandwidth. For a typical mesh network, we assume to have different classes of traffic posing different requirements on the quality of service of the communication. Therefore, we propose a concept for ant routing with colored pheromones (CPANT), where a color corresponds to a particular class of traffic. Thus, the network will treat the packets of an application according to the specific application requirements packet delay, delay jitter, and bandwidth. We show that this approach can outperform ant routing approaches that are not aware of different traffic classes when the specific traffic requirements are taken into account.