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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Ant Colony Optimization Based Quality of Service
Aware Energy Balancing Secure Routing
Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks
Manisha Rathee, Sushil Kumar , Member, IEEE, Amir H. Gandomi , Senior Member, IEEE, Kumar Dilip,
Balamurugan Balusamy, and Rizwan Patan
Abstract—Existing routing protocols for wireless sensor net-
works (WSNs) focus primarily either on energy efficiency, quality
of service (QoS), or security issues. However, a more holistic view
of WSNs is needed, as many applications require both QoS and
security guarantees along with the requirement of prolonging the
lifetime of the network. The limited energy capacity of sensor
nodes forces a tradeoff to be made between network lifetime, QoS,
and security. To address these issues, an ant colony optimization
based QoS aware energy balancing secure routing (QEBSR) algo-
rithm for WSNs is proposed in this article. Improved heuristics
for calculating the end-to-end delay of transmission and the trust
factor of the nodes on the routing path are proposed. The proposed
algorithm is compared with two existing algorithms: distributed
energy balanced routing and energy efficient routing with node
compromised resistance. Simulation results show that the proposed
QEBSR algorithm performed comparatively better than the other
two algorithms.
Index Terms—Ant colony optimization (ACO), energy
balancing, quality of service (QoS), routing, security, wireless
sensor networks (WSNs).
I. INTRODUCTION
IRELESS sensor networks (WSNs) consist of numer-
W ous geographically distributed and cooperating sensor
nodes. The availability of inexpensive, intelligent, and small-
sized sensors coupled with the technological advances in wire-
less networking techniques has been instrumental for realiz-
ing the idea of ubiquitous computing. Recently, WSNs have
Manuscript received January 29, 2019; revised August 6, 2019; accepted
October 14, 2019. Review of this manuscript was arranged by Department Editor
P. Hung. (Corresponding author: Amir H. Gandomi.)
M. Rathee and S. Kumar are with the School of Computer and Systems
Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India (e-mail:
manisharathee08@gmail.com; skdohare@yahoo.com).
A. H. Gandomi is with the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technol-
ogy, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia (e-mail:
gandomi@uts.edu.au).
K. Dilip and B. Balusamy are with the School of Computer Science
and Engineering, Galgotias University, Greater Noida 203201, India (e-mail:
kumardilip25@gmail.com; kadavulai@gmail.com).
R. Patan is with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada 520007,
India (e-mail: prizwan5@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this article are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEM.2019.2953889
0018-9391 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
become an integral part of emerging research areas such as body
area networks, smart cities, and Internet of vehicles [1], [2].
However, the error-prone nature of wireless channels and the
resource constraints of sensor nodes, such as low bandwidth,
short communication range, limited energy, and limited pro-
cessing capability, pose a number of challenges for application
of WSNs [1], [3], [27], [42]. Limited availability of energy is
one of the main problems of WSN in general and sensor node
in particular; thus, available energy must be used efficiently. A
sensor node derives its required energy from an attached battery
that is generally not rechargeable [3]. The duration of battery
power dictates the lifetime of a sensor node and, therefore, the
available energy needs to be used judiciously.
A sensor node’s limited energy and limited communication
capabilities inhibit direct communication with the sink node over
large distances [3], [28], [29], [31], [33]. Therefore, transmission
of data from the source sensor node to the sink node follows a
multihop communication paradigm. In this scenario, the key
challenge is to establish an energy balancing routing path that
increases the lifetime of the network. However, apart from an
increase in network lifetime, various mission-critical, and real-
time applications require a quality of service (QoS) guarantee
[12]–[16], [27], [42]. Also, security is a critical issue of WSNs,
as unattended operation and unreliable channels render sensor
nodes prone to attack [20], [21], [27], [28], [42].
Energy consumption balancing, QoS requirements, and secu-
rity have been addressed individually in the literature [4]–[22].
Several previous publications considered optimizing two of the
three abovementioned issues simultaneously [23]–[26]; how-
ever, few publications considered optimizing all three issues
simultaneously for generating a realistic WSN. Simultaneous
optimization of these three issues is not a trivial task, due to
severe resource constraints of WSNs. For example, ensuring
timeliness (i.e., QoS) requires compromising lifetime (i.e., en-
ergy efficiency). Similarly, highly secure data propagation in
the network requires compromising lifetime, QoS, or both, as
high security relies on complex procedures that consume greater
amounts of energy. As security procedures, which are simple in
nature but due to the simplicity the required level of security is
not provided. Thus, the limited energy capacity of sensor nodes
forces a tradeoff to be made between network lifetime, QoS
requirements, and security, i.e., energy usage for these purposes
needs to be optimized [27].
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
In this article, a QoS aware and energy balancing secure rout-
ing (QEBSR) algorithm using ant colony optimization (ACO)
is proposed in order to provide a more holistic view of WSNs.
The main contributions of this article are listed as follows.
1) Critical issues of WSNs (energy consumption balancing,
QoS requirements, and security) are been taken care of
simultaneously.
2) An event-based scenario is considered for data generation
and communication of the data to the sink node, and a
method for selection of a source node is provided.
3) Improved heuristics for calculating delay and trust values
of the sensor nodes are proposed in this article, which
results in increased network performance.
4) An ACO algorithm, which is a metaheuristic popularly
used for WSNs [9], [10], [15], [16], [25], [27], is adopted
for solving the QEBSR problem.
5) A comprehensive comparison is made between the pro-
posed algorithm and two routing algorithms: distributed
energy balanced routing (DEBR) [5] and energy efficient
routing with node compromised resistance (EENC) [28].
The rest of this article is organized as follows. Sec-
tion II discusses the work related to the issues addressed in
this article. System model and problem formulation are dis-
cussed in Section III. The proposed approach is presented in
Section IV. Simulation results and analysis is presented in
Section V. Section VI concludes this article.
II. RELATED WORK
Several routing protocols [29]–[32] have been proposed with
the objective of maximizing energy efficiency or minimizing
energy consumption in a WSN. However, in a static network with
a single sink node, these techniques cannot handle the problem of
overusing some of the sensors, especially those nearer to the sink
node. Network collapse results when the sensor nodes nearest
to the sink nodes exhaust their energy, while the nodes farthest
away from the sink node may still have 90% of the initially
available energy [33]. Li and Mohapatra [4] studied the problem
of uneven energy consumption in sensor networks and verified
that nodes placed nearer to the sink deplete their energy at a
much faster rate.
To address the problem of uneven energy consumption in
WSNs, and improve network lifetime as much as possible,
the focus of research in this area has shifted from energy
consumption minimization to energy consumption balancing
approaches. Singh and Prasanna [34] defined the property of
energy balancing and its need for WSNs and evaluated an
energy-optimal and energy-balanced algorithm for sorting in
WSNs. The energy balancing component of the algorithm tries to
ensure approximately equal energy consumption for all sensors
in the network so that they run out of battery power at nearly
the same time, which increases network lifetime. Several energy
balancing approaches have been proposed in the literature. Ok
et al. [5] proposed a distributed energy balanced routing algo-
rithm in which—based on the total energy cost—a source node
decides whether to perform direct communication or multihop
communication with the sink. Liu and Wang [6] utilized the
classical minimum hop algorithm to propose the maximizing
energy utilization routing protocol (MEURP). In MEURP, a
sensor contacts multiple neighboring nodes by exploiting the
flooding mechanism but is able to avoid flooding overhead.
Zhang et al. [7] utilized forward aware factor for presenting
an energy balancing approach for WSNs. Semchedine et al.
[8] proposed a load balancing mechanism for balancing energy
consumption in a WSN. An ACO technique was previously used
for balancing energy consumption in WSNs [9], [10]. Pala et al.
[11] studied the impact of node mobility on energy balancing in
WSNs.
However, most of these energy balancing solutions do not
satisfy the QoS requirements of various mission-critical and
real-time applications. These applications require QoS guaran-
tees in terms of packet delivery ratio (PDR), end-to-end delay,
delay jitter, and available bandwidth. Popular QoS protocols
have been proposed in several publications [12]–[16].
In addition to energy efficiency and QoS requirements, se-
curity is also a critical issue in WSNs. Security in a WSN
can be ensured either by data encryption and key management
or by identifying and removing malicious nodes. Abdmeziem
and Tandjaoui [17] proposed a key management protocol for
providing end-to-end security for e-health applications. Liu and
Chung [18] proposed a secure user authentication scheme for
WSNs in healthcare. However, resource limitations of a WSN
pose problems for the use of public key encryption/decryption
algorithms, as these algorithms use a large amount of energy
for encrypting and decrypting messages, thereby threatening
network lifetime. Unattended operation of a network and the
unreliable nature of wireless links make sensor nodes prone to
being compromised by an adversary. The problem of a node
being compromised is difficult to defend against, as an attacker
can easily acquire information of the compromised node, includ-
ing the keys used for encryption/decryption and can command
the node to launch flooding or denial of service (DoS) attacks
[19] that can paralyze the whole network. Therefore, preventing
an attack via an inside node is complicated, as the node has a
legal identity. Yi et al. [20] stated that a security mechanism at a
higher layer is of no use if the routing protocol is compromised
by modifying or dropping the messages on the routing path. To
overcome this problem, Yi et al. [20] proposed security aware ad
hoc routing, which ensures the data propagation through trusted
nodes only. Khan [21] proposed a secure communication and
routing architecture for WSNs by combining the features of
two security platforms (TESLA from SPINE and Bloom Filters
from MiniSec). Jin et al. [22] presented a trust-based intrusion
detection scheme for WSNs.
Previous publications considered two of the three issues si-
multaneously [23]–[26]. Energy efficient and QoS aware routing
protocols were presented in two previous publications [23], [24].
A previous publication proposed an ACO-based approach for
ensuring QoS and security in WSNs [25]. A strategy for energy
efficient routing and security has been proposed [26]. However,
simultaneous optimization of all three issues (energy, QoS,
and security) is needed for making a realistic WSN; not much
work has been done in this area [27]. Lin et al. [28] proposed
an energy efficient routing algorithm with node compromised
resistance that considers energy efficiency, trustworthiness of
nodes, and delay and uses ACO for solving the routing problem.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
RATHEE et al.: ACO BASED QoS AWARE ENERGY BALANCING SECURE ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR WSNs
These factors are considered in this article and we used the
ACO technique; however, our work described in this article
differs significantly from that proposed by Lin et al. [28] in
the following aspects.
1) The ratio of remaining energy to initial energy of a node is
used by Lin et al. [28] to evaluate the suitability of a node
for selection as next hop. The initial energy of each node is
equal in the network and is, therefore, constant. Therefore,
Lin et al. [28] solely rely on the remaining energy of a node
for selecting the next hop neighbor. In our proposed work,
both the remaining energy and the energy consumption of
a node is considered, which leads to the selection of a more
suitable forwarding node and more balanced consumption
of energy in the network.
2) Lin et al. [28] calculated delay using only the distance
between communicating nodes. Since the considered net-
work is static, the distance between nodes is constant once
the network is deployed. In the proposed work, delay
calculation is performed more realistically by considering
the delay while waiting in the queue at a node and the
length of the routing path.
3) The trust calculation mechanism presented by Lin et al.
[28] is complex and leads to higher energy consumption
for a node. In this article, a more straightforward mecha-
nism is proposed in which the approach considers only two
behavior attributes (packet generating and packet drop-
ping) of a node, which leads to lesser energy consumption.
4) In the proposed work, the implementation of ACO is sig-
nificantly different from the approach proposed by Lin et
al. [28] in terms of heuristic implementation, pheromone
representation, and pheromone update strategy.
III. SYSTEM MODEL AND PROBLEM FORMULATION
A. Sensor Network Model and Assumptions
A static sensor network consisting of one sink node and N
homogenous sensor nodes randomly distributed in a rectangular
target area is considered in this work. The notations used in this
article are described in Table I.
The WSN is modeled as a graph G = (V, E) where the set
of vertices V contains all the sensor nodes in the field and set of
edges E = (eij ) such that eij is the link between sensor node
vi and sensor node vj , where vi , vj ∈ V .
The links between the sensor nodes are assumed to be sym-
metric, i.e., for any two nodes (vi and vj ), if vi is reachable from
vj , then vj is also reachable from vi .
The neighbors of a sensor node are the nodes that are within
the sensor node for which the neighbors are to be identified. For
a node vi , the set of neighbors is defined as
Nbr (vi ) = {vj |dist (vi , vj ) ≤ Rcomm ∀j, 1 ≤ j ≤ N }
· Nbr (vi ) ⊆ V. (1)
The sensor nodes have limited energy capacity; however, the
sink node does not have this resource constraint.
The sensor nodes can adjust their transmission power to save
energy consumption.
3
Each sensor node is aware of its neighborhood state. Let
the state of each node, vi ∈ V , be denoted by si , then its
neighborhood state Si is defined as

Si = sj (2)
vj ∈𝒩i
where 𝒩i is the closed neighborhood of node vi such that
𝒩i = {vi } ∪ {Nbr (vi )} . (3)
Node state can include all sorts of information such as band-
width, residual energy, operating state (awake or asleep). In this
article, node state is assumed to include information concerning
residual energy; the energy required for transmitting data to
the base station; number of packets received, generated, and
transmitted; and the delay incurred by data packets while waiting
in the queue.
It is assumed that the sensor nodes are prone to be compro-
mised by attackers; however, the sink node is trustworthy, as a
compromise of the sink node renders the entire network useless.
The transmission medium is reliable, i.e., all messages trans-
mitted by a sender are received correctly by its neighbors.
However, a node may drop some of the packets either because
it has been compromised or because it is overloaded and there
is no buffer space to queue the packets.
B. Energy Consumption Model
In a WSN, sensor nodes consume energy for sensing, process-
ing, and communication (transmitting/receiving) purposes [3].
Data transmission is the most expensive task in terms of energy
consumption. Since the energy consumption for sensing and
processing is not related to routing, only the energy consumption
for communication purposes is considered in this article.
According to the energy (radio) model presented by Heinzel-
man et al. [35], the energy consumed for transmission of k bits
of data are given as
ET x = Eelec × k + εf s × k × d2 , if d ≤ d0 (4)
4
ET x = Eelec × k + εamp × k × d , if d > d0 (5)

εf s
where d0 = εmp is the threshold distance used for determin-
ing the power loss model. If the distance between transmitter and
receiver (d) is less than a threshold (d0 ), energy is consumed in
accordance with the free space model (d2 power loss); otherwise,
the multipath fading model (d4 power loss) is used to calculate
energy consumption.
The energy consumed to receive k bits of data are given as
ERx = Eelec × k. (6)
The WSN operates in rounds. In each round, events are
detected and reported to the sink. A particular sensor node may
become the source for a particular event, or it may relay data from
other sensors. In both cases, sensors consume energy. Suppose
that the sensors always generate fixed size data packets having
k bits, then the residual energy of a sensor node vi in t th round,
denoted by REi (t), is given as
 
REi (t) = REi (t − 1) − ETi x (t) + ERx i
(t) . (7)
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT

TABLE I
NOTATIONS USED IN THIS ARTICLE
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RATHEE et al.: ACO BASED QoS AWARE ENERGY BALANCING SECURE ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR WSNs
where
ETi x (t) = rgi (t) × [Eelec + εf s × dγ ]
i
ERx (t) = ri (t) × Eelec
rgi (t) is the total traffic load (received from other sensors and
to be relayed + generated at the sensor vi ) of vi in tth round and
ri (t) is the traffic load received and to be relayed by vi .
C. Attack Model
The wireless nature of communication channels in WSNs
makes them prone to different types of attacks, including sibyl
attack, wormhole attack, flooding attack, DoS attack, spoofing
and tempering attack, blackhole attack, sinkhole attack, and
selective forwarding attack [22].
This article considers flooding and blackhole attacks. In a
flooding attack, the compromised nodes communicate a large
number of packets, thereby exhausting the energy of other nodes
on the path. In a blackhole attack, a compromised node has
higher residual energy and, therefore, the neighboring nodes
prefer this compromised node as the next hop towards the sink,
but the compromised node drops the received packets and, thus,
maintains higher residual energy. The flooding attack reduces
network lifetime while the blackhole attack results in loss of
valuable information.
The type of attack launched by a compromised node depends
on the frequency of transmitting (denoted by Ft ) and receiving
pt pr
packets (denoted by Fr ), such that Ft = Δt and Fr = Δt ,
where pt is the number of packets transmitted and pr is the
number of packets received in Δt period. A larger value of Ft
implies that the compromised node is experiencing a flooding
attack while a larger value of Fr implies that the node is expe-
riencing a blackhole attack.
D. Event Generation and Propagation Model
In this article, routing is proposed for event-driven applica-
tions. Events occur randomly throughout the target area, i.e.,
these events may occur at any location in the monitoring area
and occur at unpredictable frequencies. An event Hi in the target
field is described by its influence region IR(Hi ) where
IR (Hi ) = {vj |dist (Hi , vj ) ≤ Rsense∀j, 1 ≤ j ≤ N }.
(10)
A binary detection model [36] is assumed in this article, i.e.,
every sensor node within IR(Hi ) detects Hi , i.e.,
 Remaining energy at node vi
1, if vj ∈ IR (Hi )
Dij = (11)
0, otherwise
where Dij is a Boolean variable representing the detection of
ith event by jth sensor.
The size of the influence region of the event Hi depends on
the event radius HRi . The larger the value of HRi , the greater
the number of sensors in IR(Hi ), i.e., an event spanning a larger
area will influence a greater number of sensor nodes to detect
the event.
Set IR(Hi ) contains all the sensors currently detecting the
event Hi and necessarily IR(Hi ) ⊆ V . The sensors in set
5
IR(Hi ) collect similar information. To avoid the transmission of
redundant information and save energy consumption, these sen-
(8)
sors collectively elect a leader from among themselves, which
(9) generates and transmits the data packets on behalf of all the
sensors sensing that event and, therefore, is known as the data
source. The source node (vs ) is selected using the following
rule:
vs = argmin {(dist (vk , sink) REk ) × DTFk } (12)
k∈IR(Hi )
where DTFk is a dynamic trust factor of node vk [defined in
(11)], which leads to the selection of a more trusted node as a
data source. At the start of the proposed algorithm, DTFk = 1,
∀k, 1 ≤ k ≤ N .
E. Problem Formulation
This article considers a routing problem in WSNs motivated
by event-driven applications. In this problem, events occur ran-
domly throughout the sensing field. The sensors in the influence
region of an event, IR(Hi ), detect that event and select a leader
(known as the source node) among themselves, which can for-
ward the data to sink. The source node needs to determine a
path in the network that leads to balanced energy consumption
among the sensors, increased QoS, and increased the security of
information on the path when some of the nodes in the network
have been compromised.
Given a multihop WSN represented by G = (V, E), detec-
tion of an event triggers the source node to determine a routing
path RP:
RP = (v1 , v2 , . . . , vn ). (13)
Such that v1 is the source node, vn is the sink node, and
vi+1 ∈ FN(vi ), ∀i, 1 < i < n where FN is set of forwarding
neighbors defined as
FN (vi ) = {vj |vj ∈ Nbr (vi ) && dist (vj , Sink)
≤ dist (vi , Sink)}. (14)
The determined routing path RP needs to fulfill the following
three objectives.
1) Minimization of Total Energy Cost (TEC): The cost func-
tion proposed by Ok et al. [5] is adopted for calculating TEC.
The energy cost (ECij ) for transmitting a data packet from node
vi to vj is given as
Energy needed from node vi to vj eij
ECij = = . (15)
REi
The sender node aims to select among its neighbors and itself
the best candidate for direct communication with the sink by
considering the total energy required for transmission to the sink
node through neighboring nodes. The TECij of a neighboring
node vj at sensor vi is given as
TECij = ECij + ECjSink . (16)
Using TECij , node vi decides whether to send the data
through node vj or to communicate directly with the sink
node. If TECij < ECiSink , vi forwards its data through vj ,
otherwise, it directly sends the data to the sink.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
2) Minimization of Delay: The delay on the routing path
depends on the number of hops in the path and delays incurred
at a node. A routing path having a smaller number of hops is
preferred over a path having a higher number of hops, as the
path having a smaller number of hops minimizes end-to-end
delay and resource requirements. The delay at a particular node
depends on the local factors related to that node itself, such as
queue length and forwarding delay.
In this article, for computing the value of end-to-end delay,
both the path delay and delay incurred at a node are taken into
consideration. Selecting a node that is nearest to a base station
among the neighbors of a sender node will lead to a smaller
number of hops on the path. However, always using the node
nearest to the sink may lead to either death of that node or long
queues, which will lead to further delays in transmitting the data.
A sender node vi calculates the delay at a neighbor node vj by
using path and node delay factor (PNDFij ) as
dist (vj , Sink)
PNDFij = ∗ dj
dist (vi , vj )
where dj is the delay incurred by a packet while waiting in a
queue at node vj and is related to the size of available buffer
space at node vj . At the start of the algorithm, dj is assumed to
be zero.
3) Maximization of Trusted Nodes: Node capturing is a
widely used method for an inside attack in WSNs, which is
the most laborious method of attack to prevent, due to the legal
identity of the compromised nodes. Although inside attacks are
hard to defend against, the behavior of a compromised node is
substantially different from that of normal sensor nodes [25].
Therefore, the behavioral aspects of a node help to distinguish
compromised nodes from normal ones. The noncompromised
nodes can then avoid these compromised nodes on the routing
path by delivering their data through trusted nodes only. The
trust factor is used by the source node to find the most faithful
node among its neighbors and to protect against inside attacks.
In this article, the packet drop rate and packet generation
rate of a node are considered for calculating its DTF. If a
node generates and transmits a large number of packets, then
it will exhaust the energy of normal nodes on the routing path
and in this process will exhaust its own energy, which leads
to hole formation and results in a short network lifetime. The
trustworthiness of a node is calculated by using a DTF, which is
defined as
   
pr + pg − pt pg
DTF = w1 ∗ + w2 ∗ (18)
pr + pg pmax ∗ r
where w1 and w2 are the weights, which signify the relative
importance of packet dropping behavior and packet transmitting
behavior, r denotes the number of rounds the node has been
in the network, pr is number of packets received by a node,
pg is the number of packets generated at that node, pt is the
number of packets transmitted by that node, and pmax denotes
the maximum number of packets a node can transmit with the
initially available energy, which is approximately equal to
Einitial
pmax = . (19)
Psize ∗ (1.5 ∗ Eelec + εf s ∗ d20 )
The trustworthiness of a node is inversely proportional to the
value of DTF, i.e., the lower the value of DTF, the higher is the
trustworthiness of the node.
For assessing the neighbors of a sender and finding the suitable
forwarding node, the three objectives (i.e., minimizing TEC,
minimizing PNDF, and maximizing DTF) are combined into
a single heuristic termed selectivity value of a node (SVN), by
associating weights with each of the three objectives. At a sender
node vi , the selectivity value of a neighbor node vj (SVNij ) is
calculated as
SVNij = we ∗ TECij + wq ∗ PNDFij + ws ∗ DTFj (20)
where we is the weight associated with energy parameter, wq is
the weight of the QoS parameter, and ws is the weight associated
with security parameter such that 0 ≤0 ≤ we , wq , ws ≤ 1 and
we + wq + ws = 1. These weights represent the relative impor-
tance of these parameters and can be adjusted according to the
requirements of the application.
(17)
IV. ACO-BASED QEBSR ALGORITHM
Since routing in WSNs is known to be an NP-hard problem
[27], classical optimization techniques are not capable of pro-
viding a good solution in a reasonable amount of time. Meta-
heuristic techniques are well suited for such complex optimiza-
tion problems. In literature, metaheuristic techniques have been
shown performing better than the conventional optimization
techniques and have been extensively used for solving problems
related to WSNs [27], [40].
A number of bioinspired metaheuristic techniques have been
devised, which include genetic algorithms (GA), ACO, parti-
cle swarm optimization (PSO), bee colony optimization, and
Cuckoo search (CS) to name a few. Though all of these tech-
niques can be applied for routing in WSNs, ACO is more suitable
and easily adaptable for the routing problem in WSNs due to
following reasons.
Routing in WSNs is a discrete optimization problem and
except ACO and GA, all the techniques named previously have
been primarily proposed for continuous optimization. So for
applying them to routing, these techniques will need to be
discretized.
A. GA and ACO
Between GA and ACO, ACO is better suited for routing
purposes because ACO is a construction-based technique while
GA is a population-based technique where a population of
solutions is evolved using crossover and mutation operators. If
GA is applied to routing, then there are two main issues.
1) If there are N sensor nodes then the solution (i.e., routing
path) is represented using an N-dimensional chromosome,
but practically only a few sensor nodes are required to
be on the routing path. To represent this scenario binary
representation of chromosomes is preferred where a 0
represents that node is not included in the routing path
and a 1 denotes that the node is included in the routing
path. However, the routing path ought to be an ordered
list of sensor nodes and to define the ordering of nodes
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RATHEE et al.: ACO BASED QoS AWARE ENERGY BALANCING SECURE ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR WSNs 7

included in the routing path one more structure is needed, pheromone value τ and heuristic function η. Pheromone values
which increases the overhead of the algorithm. result from the long-term collective learning from the actions of
2) In WSNs, a node communicates with its neighbors only, the ants and represent the goodness of the node to be selected.
but in GA, the solution generated after applying crossover Values of the heuristic function reflect the local information of
and mutation operators may have an ordering of nodes a node. The general framework and working principle of ACO
where adjacent nodes on the routing path are not the can be found in [38].
neighbors of each other. In such a scenario, the solution The sensor nodes monitor their environment, and whenever
generated by GA needs to be repaired which is pure events occur, the nodes nearest to those events generate the
overhead. sensing reports and start the routing process. At each source
But the inherent solution construction mechanism of ACO node, m ants are generated. Each of these ants establishes
is similar to the routing path construction where an ant selects a routing path in the network by choosing the next hop for
the next hop sensor node from amongst its neighboring sensor forwarding its data. The heuristic value for the routing problem
nodes. in this article is the inverse of the selectivity value, i.e.,
ηij = 1/SVNij . (21)
B. PSO (and Similar Techniques) and ACO
Each ant at a node vi selects one of its neighbors vj according
ACO’s solution space is typically represented as a weighted to the following rule:
graph, called the construction graph. ACO is more applicable 
to problems where source and destination are predefined and argmaxj∈Nbr (vi ){[τij ]α [ηij ]β }, if q ≤ q0
j= (22)
specific. ACO’s objective is generally searching for an optimal pij, otherwise
path in the construction graph. where q is a randomly generated number and q0 is a fixed
PSO’s solution space is typically represented as a set of threshold value, which determines whether the ant will perform
n-dimensional points. PSO is commonly more applicable to exploration or exploitation. pij is the probability of selection of
problems where previous, and next particle positions at each vj and is given as
point are clear and uniquely defined. PSO’s objective is generally α β
finding the location of an optimal point in a Cartesian coordinate  [τij ] [ηij ]α , if vj ∈ Nbr (vi )
pij = j∈Nbr( i)
v [τ ij ] [ηij ]β (23)
system.
0, otherwise
Therefore, for routing problems, the ACO algorithm has been
the choice of many researchers [9], [10], [15], [16], [25], [41] where τij represents the pheromone level on the link between
due to its easy adaptability for routing path construction. node vi and vj . α and β denote the relative importance of the
The ACO algorithm was initially proposed by Dorigo [37]. pheromone value and the heuristic function.
In ACO, the foraging behavior of ants is mimicked to find a Once the forwarding ant reaches the sink node, it starts
solution to the problem at hand. An actual ant colony can quickly its backward journey on the established path and updates the
converge and take the shortest path from their nest to a food pheromones at an intermediate node according to the rule given
source. While moving from their nest to a food source, the ants as follows:
deposit a volatile chemical, called a pheromone, on their return
τij (iter + 1) ← (1 − ρ) τij (iter) + ρΔτij (24)
path and prefer the path with the highest pheromone level. The
shorter paths are traveled more quickly and, therefore, are visited where iter is the iteration number, ρ is the evaporation coefficient
more frequently, which leads to an increase in the pheromone that guides exploration, and Δτij represents the variation in
level on the shorter paths. This in turn attracts more ants, which pheromone level between nodes vi and vj
increases the pheromone intensity and ultimately results in a
Q
convergence of most of the ants on the shortest path. Thus, the , if link (i, j) ∈ best path
Δτij = SVNij (25)
pheromone is the main factor involved in the collective learning 0, otherwise
behavior of an ant colony in which the shortest path from the
colony’s nest to a food source is found [38]. where Q is a constant. The value of τij varies from τmin to τmax
The basic idea of the ACO algorithm has been adapted for where τmin > 0. If after the pheromone update, τij < τmin , then
finding a routing path in WSNs. max–min ant system [39] was τij = τmin and, if τij > τmax , then τij = τmax
adapted in this article. At each source node in the network, iter

ρiter−i
several ants are generated and assigned the task of finding a path τmax (iter) = + ρiter τmin (iter) (26)
SVN min
to the sink node. While moving from source to sink, these ants i=1
store the information about the quality of nodes traveled (such as where SVNmin is the minimum value of SVN until iter
energy consumption, residual energy, packets generated, packets iteration
received, packets transmitted, and delay), and on their way back
1
from destination to source this information is used for updating τmin (iter) = . (27)
the pheromone values τ : i.e., routing tables at intermediate (1 − ρ) SVNmin
nodes. The ants select a neighbor node using a combination of The ACO-based QEBSR approach is shown in Algorithm 1.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Algorithm 1: ACO-Based QEBSR.
1. Initialize parameters.
2. While (termination condition not met).
3. for each source, node generate a predefined number of
ants
4. for each ant construct routing path using rule (22) &
(23)
5. Among the routing paths constructed by all the ants,
find the best path.
6. Save the best path and use it to update pheromone
according to rule (24) & (25).
7. Recalculate max and min pheromone levels on the
path using rule (26) & (27).
8. Return best path.
9. Update the network metrics.
Explanation: Given the WSN topology and other network
parameters, the algorithm finds a routing path which gives the
minimum value of SVN for each component of the path. The
algorithm is executed for a predefined number of iteration.
In each iteration, a predefined number of ants is generated
at the source node. Each ant in the colony probabilistically
constructs a path to the sink node. Among the routing paths
constructed by all theants, the best path, i.e., the path having
a minimum value of n−1 i=1 SVNRP(i),RP(i+1) is identified and
is used to update the pheromone levels on the links between
the nodes. This is done to make the ants converge on the best
path from the source to sink. After updating the pheromone
levels, maximum and minimum bounds are recalculated, and if
the current pheromone level goes outside the bounds, it is reset.
After the algorithm has been executed for a predefined number
of generations, the best path is returned as the final path from the
source node to sink for communicating the data, and network
metrics (such as residual energy of nodes and number of dead
nodes) are updated. When the number of dead nodes exceeds
10% of the total nodes in the network, the WSN is considered
as nonfunctional, and the algorithm stops.
V. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND RESULTS ANALYSIS
In this section, the performance of the proposed QEBSR algo-
rithm is evaluated, and its effectiveness is validated by compar-
ing it with two existing algorithms: DEBR [5] and EENC [28].
These algorithms were implemented under the same network
and energy parameters, and simulation was performed using
MATLAB. The following performance metrics were used in this
article for comparing the abovementioned routing algorithms in
WSNs.
1) Network lifetime: This metric gives a round number when
10% of the nodes in the network have their residual energy
level below the prescribed minimum energy value.
2) Packet delivery ratio: This metric gives a ratio of the
number of packets received at the sink to the number of
packets transmitted to sink.
3) Delay: This metric is used to compare the average delay
incurred by a packet to reach from the source node to the
sink node.
The abovementioned metrics have been selected to evaluate
the performance of the proposed approach on each of the issues
addressed herein in this article, i.e., energy balancing, QoS, and
security.
The lifetime of a WSN is a vital parameter, which dictates the
functional period of the network. A network is expected to be
functional for as long as possible. Network lifetime depends
on the energy availability of the nodes in the network. The
balanced energy consumption in the network leads to an increase
in available energy and consequently the network lifetime. Vice
versa, the increased network lifetime implies balanced energy
consumption in the network.
Delay metric is used to assess the QoS aspect of the proposed
approach. Since event-based WSN has been considered in this
article, and if data of critical events does not reach the sink in
time, the value of data is lost.
PDR metric is used to evaluate the performance of the net-
work in the presence of compromised nodes. The number of
compromised nodes and their behavior (packet generation and
packet dropping) may affect the network lifetime and the delay.
The increase in a number of compromised nodes when packet
generation rate is higher will result into decreased network life-
time (as more number of packets is transmitted) and more delay
on the path (as queuing delay at nodes increases). The increase
in a number of compromised nodes when packet drop rate is
higher will lead to increase in the network lifetime (as less data is
communicated) and lesser delay but important information does
not reach the sink node and, therefore, this increased lifetime is
of no use.
All the three metrics used in this article depend on the number
of sensor nodes in the network (i.e., the node density) and the
number of compromised nodes in the network. Additionally, the
PDR and delay metric also depends on the availability of buffer
space at a sensor node. The more buffer space, the more number
of packets will be in queue increasing the delay, but packet drop
will be less due to improving the PDR. If buffer space is not
available and the node receives a packet, it will drop the packet,
thus, decreasing the PDR.
The relative importance of packet dropping behavior and
packet transmitting behavior of the sensor nodes is simulated
using weight values w1 and w2 , respectively.
A. Simulation Environment
The simulation is performed in a square area environment
of 400 × 400 m where the sensors are deployed randomly. A
number of scenarios are considered by varying the number of
sensor nodes in the field from 100 to 400. The compromised
nodes are uniformly distributed in the sensor field along with
the normal nodes. The sink node is located in the center of the
sensing field, i.e., at (200, 200). The radio model parameters used
for simulation are shown in Table II, ACO parameters are shown
in Table III, and network parameters are shown in Table IV.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
RATHEE et al.: ACO BASED QoS AWARE ENERGY BALANCING SECURE ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR WSNs
Fig. 1. Effect of compromised nodes on network lifetime. (a) When w1 > w2 . (b) When w1 < w2 .
TABLE II
RADIO MODEL PARAMETERS
TABLE III
ACO PARAMETERS
B. Simulation Results
Network Lifetime and PDR: When compromised nodes are
present in the network and the routing algorithm does not address
this fact, network lifetime and PDR are related. The network
lifetime and PDR become inversely proportional to each other.
This is true in the case of DEBR, as it only uses the energy
consumption and remaining energy information for selecting
the next hop neighbor. Depending on the values of w1 and w2 ,
the compromised nodes may drop or transmit more packets.
If w1 > w2 , packet drop is higher than packet transmission
9
and the compromised node maintains a high level of remaining
energy and, therefore, is more suitable to be selected as the next
hop forwarding neighbor. This seems to increase the network
lifetime but the PDR decreases. Similarly, when w1 < w2 , the
node transmits more packets, resulting in an improved PDR
but, due to increased energy consumption, network lifetime
decreases.
A comparison of different algorithms based on network
lifetime is shown in Figs. 1 and 2. In Fig. 1(a) and (b), the
network lifetime of different algorithms for a network having
100 nodes and a varying proportion of compromised nodes is
compared, for cases when w1 > w2 and w1 < w2 . For DEBR,
when w1 > w2 , an increase in the percentage of compromised
nodes leads to an increase in network lifetime. This is because
DEBR chooses a next forwarding node based on its residual
energy. Since a compromised node drops more packets, its
energy consumption is lower and the level of remaining energy
is high. Both EENC and QEBSR take into account the behavior
of a node and try to avoid compromised nodes. For both of these
algorithms, network lifetime decreases with an increase in the
number of compromised nodes. However, it can be inferred from
Fig. 1(a) and (b) that QEBSR performs comparatively better than
EENC.
Fig. 2(a) and (b) shows the effect of node density on the
network lifetime of these algorithms for a network that has
20% of its nodes compromised for w1 > w2 and w1 < w2 . An
increase in the number of nodes in the simulation area leads
to increased network lifetime for all algorithms in both cases,
when w1 > w2 and w1 < w2 . In a denser network, a node has
a greater number of neighbors and, therefore, more choices
for data transmission, which leads to energy-balanced propa-
gation of data in the network, resulting in an increased network
lifetime.
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10 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT

TABLE IV
NETWORK PARAMETERS

Fig. 2. Effect of sensor node density on the network lifetime. (a) When w1 > w2 . (b) When w1 < w2 .

The QEBSR performs comparatively better than EENC, since

EENC only considers the remaining energy (initial energy does
not affect the lifetime since it is constant), while QEBSR consid-
ers both the energy required for transmission and the remaining
energy of a node, thereby selecting a better forwarding node that
increases the network lifetime. In the case of QEBSR, network
lifetime also depends on the importance given to TEC of the
nodes. The effect of we on network lifetime is shown in Fig. 3.
The PDR for the algorithms over a 100 node network when
w1 > w2 and w1 < w2 are compared in Fig. 4(a) and (b), re-
spectively. In Fig. 4(a), PDR for the algorithms decreases with an
increase in the number of compromised nodes. QEBSR performs
comparatively better than the other algorithms. In Fig. 4(b),
PDR for DEBR increases with an increase in the number of
compromised nodes because DEBR is not concerned with the
behavior of the nodes. In this case, for all the compromised
nodes, packet generation behavior is more prominent than packet Fig. 3. Effect of we on network lifetime.
dropping behavior. DEBR can select a compromised node as the
source that generates a greater number of packets, since the drop the reason for the improvement in PDR is due to an increase in
rate is small for all the compromised nodes, PDR improves. As the number of compromised nodes.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
RATHEE et al.: ACO BASED QoS AWARE ENERGY BALANCING SECURE ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR WSNs
Fig. 4. Effect of compromised nodes on PDR. (a) When w1 > w2 . (b) When w1 < w2 .
Fig. 5. Effect of available buffer space on PDR.
For EENC and QEBR in both cases, the PDR decreases with
an increase in the number of compromised nodes. Both EENC
and QEBR attempt to avoid compromised nodes on the routing
path. When the percentage of compromised nodes increases,
there are a smaller number of normal nodes near a source node.
Since several events are generated in each round, some of the
nodes may receive data for all or some of the events. If available
buffer space at those nodes is not sufficient to hold the packets,
then the nodes have no choice except to drop the packets.
Therefore, PDR decreases with an increase in the number of
compromised nodes. The effect of available buffer space on
PDR is shown in Fig. 5.
As shown in Fig. 5, PDR increases with an increase
in available buffer space. An increase in the number
of nodes in the network area also leads to an increase
in PDR, as shown in Fig. 6(a) and (b).
A comparison of average end-to-end delay values for a packet
is shown in Fig. 7(a). The delay increases with an increase in
the number of nodes in the network because in larger network
11
routing paths have a higher number of nodes where each of the
nodes introduces queuing and processing delays. In EENC, the
delay is considered based on the distance between the commu-
nicating nodes. The value of this type of delay is fixed for any
two communicating nodes.
However, QEBSR—along with the distance-based delay—
also considers the delay encountered by a data packet while
waiting in the queue. The queuing delay depends on the avail-
ability of buffer space, as shown in Fig. 7(b). The average delay
increases with an increase in the amount of available buffer
space because, if a node is getting the data of all or some of
the events, the node which is getting the data of event needs
to store that data as all the packets cannot be processed at
once. A larger buffer can enqueue more packets, which leads
to an increase in the average delay value for a packet at a
node.
For delay parameter also, QEBSR performs better than other
algorithms for the network instances considered in this article,
as QEBSR avoids neighbors having a greater delay value and
finds routing paths that have a smaller number of nodes. It is
interesting that DEBR has less of a delay as compared to EENC.
This is because EENC considers only the distance between
communicating nodes and in a dense network, a source node
has a greater number of neighbors out of which it selects the
nearest one, which will decrease the delay. This leads to a
higher number of nodes on the routing path and consequently,
more delay. However, DEBR selects a node based on the ratio
of its energy consumption for transmission to sink and its
remaining energy. Since energy consumption depends on the
distance between communicating nodes, a node nearer to the
sink will consume less energy and has more chances of selection
as compared to nodes nearer to the source node. This leads to a
lower number of nodes on the routing path and, therefore, less
delay in comparison with EENC. Since DEBR does not consider
the delay encountered at a node, DEBR has a higher delay in
comparison with QEBSR.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
12
Fig. 6. Effect of node density on PDR. (a) When w1 > w2 . (b) When w1 < w2 .
Fig. 7. Delay value. (a) Effect of node density on delay value. (b) Effect of available buffer space on delay value.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this article, the proposed QEBSR approach considered QoS
and security requirements along with energy balancing require-
ment and adapted ACO for determining the routing path in the
network. Adapting ACO for QEBSR resulted in better route
determination. QEBSR used improved models for calculating
end-to-end delay and trust factor values proposed in this article.
End-to-end delay calculation was carried out by considering the
delay on the path and the delay encountered at a node. Fur-
thermore, a more straightforward but effective trust calculation
mechanism was proposed by considering the packet drop rate
and packet generation rate. In comparison to DEBR and EENC,
QEBSR performs better by prolonging the network lifetime,
reducing delay, and forwarding data through trusted nodes.
In this article, weight vectors were applied to decide the
importance of underlying objectives; however, in some cases,
the determination of such weight vectors is nontrivial. In such
scenarios, finding tradeoff solutions that provide a compromise
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
among underlying objectives is a better alternative. Therefore,
in future work, the approach proposed here can be extended to
work without using such weight vectors in cases where weight
determination is either not possible or difficult.
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