Intelligent Routing and Bandwidth Allocation in Wireless Networks

Sensor networks and satellite constellations face a number of challenges for reliable and robust communications. Increasingly heterogeneous nodes and a multitude of new emerging Earth science applications put additional restrictions on throughput and delay requirements. These problems are further aggravated by energy and bandwidth constraints on the network nodes. Quality of service and performance of such wireless networks, in the presence of such issues, are greatly affected by network routing and bandwidth allocation. We propose a new class of routing algorithms based on principles of biological swarms, which have the potential to address these problems in an autonomous and intelligent fashion. Such swarm-based algorithms adapt well to dynamic topologies, and, compared to the current state-of-the-art, have been shown to result in the highest throughput and lowest delays in internet-style networks. Swarm-based routing algorithms boast a number of attractive features, including autonomy, robustness and faulttolerance. They rely on the interaction of autonomous agents who communicate with each other through the environment (a phenomenon known as stigmergy). Current swarm based routing algorithms focus on wired circuit or packet switched networks. We propose new swarm routing algorithms suitable for wireless sensor or satellite networks. Control for optimizing the transmitter power and data rate for network communication is also considered. Biologically inspired methodologies such as evolutionary computing and particle swarm optimization can be used for concurrent maximization of the data rate and minimization of transmitter power, subject to constraints on the bit error rate (BER) at the receiver.