Zone Based Ant Colony Routing In Mobile
Ad-hoc Network
Maumita Bandyopadhyay, maumita.bandyopadhyay@tcs.com. Parama Bhaumik,
parama@it.jusl.ac.in. Dept of Information Technology. Jadavpur University. Salt Lake Campus.
Block-LB, Plot-8, sector-III, Kolkata-700098, India.
Abstract— Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a stochastic
approach for solving combinatorial optimization problems like
routing in computer networks. The idea of this optimization is
based on the food accumulation methodology of the ant
community. Zone based routing algorithms is build on the
concept of individual node’s position for routing of packets in
mobile ad-hoc networks. Here the nodes’ position can be further
utilized to discover routes by the Ants in optimized way. Position
based routing algorithms (POSANT) had some significant
loopholes to find route (source to destination) like it never
guarantees the route would be the shortest one, in cases while it is
able to find it. On the contrary, routing algorithms which are
based on ant colony optimization find routing paths that are close
in length to the shortest paths. The drawback of these algorithms
is the large number of control messages that needs to be sent or
the long delay before the routes are established from a source to a
destination.
Here In this paper we have used Zone based ANT colony using
Clustering which assures to find shortest route using the DIR
principle (In this principle, the source or intermediate node
transmits message to several neighbors and the node whose
direction is closest to the direction of destination gets selected as
the next hop forwarding node.) together with minimum overhead
for route discovery and mobility management. Unlike other Zone
based approach, in clustering it is not required to consider zone
related information of each node while finding shortest path.
Here, it is being proposed a new routing algorithm for mobile ad
hoc network by combining the concept of Ant Colony approach
and Zone based routing approach using clustering to get shortest
path with small number of control messages to minimize the
overhead. Simulations show that Zone Based ant colony routing
algorithm has relatively short route establishment overhead than
other zone based ant colony algorithms in highly mobile
scenarios.
Index Terms— Ad-hoc Network; Ant Colony; Zone; Cluster;
Routing; POSANT; Max-Min D.
I. INTRODUCTION
W ireless Sensor Network is a collection of wireless,
uniquely addressable sensor devices which dynamically
form a temporary network, without using any existing
network infrastructure or centralized administration. Each
node in the network effectively becomes a router, and
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). 978-1-4244-5489-1/10/ $26.00 © 2010
IEEE
forwards packets towards the packet’s destination node.
Wireless sensor networks are characterized by frequently
changing network topology, multi-hop wireless connection
and the need of dynamic, efficient routing protocols.
In this paper we propose Zone based Ant Colony routing
algorithm using Cluster in mobile ad-hoc network. This
algorithm uses the concept of clustering in mobile ad-hoc
network. Those clusters will be controlled by cluster heads. In
this paper we show zone based ant colony routing algorithm
using cluster is more efficient than POSANT routing
algorithm by comparative Overhead study of POSANT and
Zone based Ant using clustering concept with respect to
varying Node Number, Zone Size and Mobility.
II. OVERVIEW OF ANT COLONY ROUTING ALGORITHM
Ant colony algorithm (ACO) is distributed and adaptive in
finding shortest paths from source to destination nodes while
also constructing a low cost overlay routing network. ACO is
a stochastic approach for solving combinatorial optimization
problems like routing in computer networks. The idea of this
optimization is based on the observation of how ants optimize
food gathering in the nature. Each node can take itself some
stochastic decision based on some specific attributes supplied
to the node [7].
Ant colony algorithms get there inspiration from the
behavior of real ants gathering for food. Individual ants act as
simple agents that hunt for food by following pheromone trails
and depositing pheromone along the path taken. An ant is
more likely to follow a trail with a high concentration of
pheromone. Pheromone on shorter paths gets increasingly
reinforced as more ants follow the higher concentration of
pheromones. This is due to more ants being able to travel a
shorter path than a longer path over a given period of time [1].
A. POSANT Routing Algorithm
In position based routing algorithm the destination node is
known and addressed by means of its location. Routing is
performed by a scheme that is based on this information,
which is generally classified as position-based scheme [2] [8].
POSANT is ant colony optimization based routing
algorithm which uses location information to improve its
efficiency. POSANT is able to find optimum or nearly
optimum routes when a given network contains nodes.
Zones in POSANT:
Consider a destination node D and a network graph G. For
each node S (i.e. S is not necessarily the source node) we
partition its neighbors into 3 zones called zone1, zone2 and
zone3. Consider a line segment between S to D. For a
neighbors H of S, angle θH is defined as the angle between line
segments SH and SD. Node H belongs to zone1 if θH ≤ π/4,
zone2 if π/4 < θH < 3π/4, and zone3 if 3π/4 ≤ θH ≤ π, see Fig 1
[3].
of pheromone trail of its outgoing link. As discussed above,
value of pheromone trail of zone 1 will be greater than that of
other zone. So ant will follow the zone 1 go get the shortest
path. Similarly, ants of zone 2 and zone 3 will follow the path
of 2nd and 3rd priority.
In most cases, the ant of zone 1 will establish the shortest
path in less overhead. But sometimes may happen that due to
some breakage in the path, ant of zone 1 may not find the
destination. At that time zone 2 and / or zone 3 ant may get the
path. As an example, in the Figure below, according to the
POSANT concept, ant of zone 1 chooses A as next hop and it
follows path Source -> A -> B -> L. But the path comes to a
dead end and ant 1 lost because it already traverse node B and
no other path is there from node l. But the ant of zone 2 gets
the path from source to destination.

Fig. 1. (a) θH is the angle between SH and SD. (b) Different zones of network
N for destination node D

Zone Selection Algorithm of POSANT:

if (abs(θH) >= z5)
θH = abs(θH) - z5;
if(((abs(θH) < z1) && (abs(θH) >= 0.0)) || ((abs(θH) > z4) && Fig. 2. Ant of zone 1 fails to find the destination. Ant of Zone 2 finds the
destination node. So we need to send ants in all three zones to increase the
(abs(θH) <= z5))) probability of finding out the destination node
ret = 1;
elsif (((abs(θH) < z2) && (abs(θH) >= z1)) || ((abs(θH) > z3)
In addition to the pheromone trail table discussed before,
&& (abs(θH) <= z4)))
each node maintains another table which we call Back Routing
ret = 2;
(BR) table. Whenever a forward ant enters a node from one of
elsif((abs(θH) <= z3) && (abs(θH) >= z2))
its neighbors, an entry in the BR table will be created that
ret = 3;
stores the identifier of the neighbor which the forward ant is
return ret;
coming from, the sequence number of the ant and the
identifier of the destination. Repeated forward ants will be
Where, z5 = 2π, z4 = 7π/4, z3 = 5π/4, z2 = 3π/4, z1 = π/4.
destroyed. When a forward ant reaches the destination, it is
destroyed and a backward ant is sent back to the source. This
Route establishment in POSANT: backward ant has the same sequence number as the
Consider a set of data packets coming to source node S
corresponding forward ant and traverses the same path to the
where the destination address is D. To establish a route, S
source using the information stored in BR tables. Moving
launches n forward ants with unique sequence numbers for
from node B to node A, the backward ant increases the
each zone (3n ants). Assigning very large value to n increases
amount of pheromone stored in AB. An evaporation process
the overhead of the algorithm without any significant
causes the amount of pheromone deposited in each link to
improvement. Similar to other ACO routing algorithms, at
decrease as the time passes on [3].
each node a forward ant makes a stochastic decision which is
based on the values of pheromone trails to select the next hop.
Limitations of POSANT:
The values of pheromone trails are stored in a table called
• Robustness is a problem in position based ant colony
pheromone trail table at each node according to the zone
algorithm. The use of position of destination node causes
value of the particular node. Suppose that a forward ant is
problem in terms of reliability. The accuracy of destination
currently residing in node S and this node has k neighbors H1,
position is another important problem to consider. For static
H2,...,Hk, Among them let H1, H2,..., Hi are in Zone 1, Hi1,
network the problem is straightforward, while the problem of
Hi2,...,Hj are in Zone 2 and Hj1, Hj2…. Hk are in Zone 3. S
designing location updates schemes to enable efficient routing
launches 3 ants in each zone. The ant in zone 1 will take
in mobile ad hoc network appears to be more difficult than
stochastic decision to find the next hop depending upon value
routing itself.
 • In this type of algorithm methods should be incorporated
to find out the positioning error which may cause mistake to
identify the destination node [5].
B. Zone based Routing Algorithm using Cluster
Concept of clustering needs grouping of nodes in the
network. This grouping depends upon transmission range and
number of hop in a group. Each node group will have a group
head called Cluster head having the responsibility of
communication among its member nodes and other cluster
heads. Cluster head should contain address of its member
nodes as well as that of other cluster heads. Member nodes
need to store address information of their cluster head and
neighbor nodes. When information needs to pass from one
node to another, member node sends this information to its
corresponding cluster head, which decides whether the
destination is a member or not. If yes, it directly sends the
information to destination. If no, it sends the information alone
with the destination node to other cluster heads which then
start to search in their own cluster [4].
Fig. 3. Network after phase-I Clustering. Here the whole network has been
divided into four clusters each with a cluster head
C. Ant Colony Routing Algorithm with Zones
Concept of Ant Colony algorithm is merged with zone
based (clustering) algorithm to form ant colony routing
algorithm with zones. This algorithm will provide advantage
of both ant colony and zone based algorithm. Like ant colony
algorithm, here we need not store large routing tables in
nodes, we need to store only neighboring node information
and previous traversed node information. As nodes in mobile
ad-hoc network will have memory of small storage capacity, it
would be tough to store large routing table inside each node.
In our zone based ant colony algorithm there will be cluster
head available within each zone. As clustering concept, only
cluster head node need to store path information of its member
nodes as well as zone boundary information for all other
clusters in the network.
Initial Cluster formation:
At the time of initialization of this algorithm, transmission
range and number of hop (d) should be mentioned so that
cluster can be formed and cluster heads can be selected for
those clusters. To create static zones two phase of the
algorithms are being followed, they are:
Phase-I: Max-Min D–Cluster Formation algorithm:
Step I: At some common epoch each node initiates 2d
rounds of flooding of information exchange (node id) where d
is the given heuristic. In this algorithm, flooding occurs once,
at the time of initial cluster formation. Each node maintains a
logged entry of two arrays, WINNER and SENDER to store
the results of each flooding round.
Step II: Initially each node sets its winner to be equal to its
own node id.
Step III: This is the phase for FLOODMAX where a node
chooses the largest value among its own WINNER array and
this process continues for d rounds.
Step IV: This FLOODMIN phase follows FLOODMAX
where a node chooses the smallest rather than the largest value
as its new WINNER to reclaim some of their territory.
Step V: After these two d rounds of information exchange a
node is able to determine its cluster-head [6].
Phase-II: Zone Formation algorithm:
Step I: The cluster head broadcasts get_Position_forAll ( )
request message along with its own GPS to get percolated
within d hop.
Step II: All member nodes in turn unicast back the message
node_GPS ( ) to the cluster-head using geographical routing.
Step III: Cluster-head receives all the GPS values of its
members and calculates the maximum limiting coordinates for
Left, Right, Up and Down values to define its boundary.
Step IV: The cluster head then broadcasts the message
get_Boundary_values ( ) within the d hop transmission range
to notify all the member nodes about the cluster boundary.
Step IV: All the member nodes become alerted about the
rectangular cluster boundary information, which can be
verified while changing their positions [6] and these
geographical formed boundaries are considered as zones.
Phase-III: Mobility Management of Cluster Heads
through Selection of Surrogate Heads:
In ad hoc networks, because node can move arbitrarily, any
node can leave its cluster boundary. The problem of node
mobility is much more alarming when the cluster head itself
becomes mobile and thereby generating the necessity of
periodic re-clustering.
In the cluster management protocol any node including the
cluster head automatically gets alarmed while crossing the
geographical boundary of a cluster using the cluster
management protocol. Thus it is quite easy for a departing
cluster head to make a timely arrangement for a surrogate
head. The cluster head can select any of its current cluster
members for delegating the cluster headship and thus can
handover the entire cluster head responsibility to facilitate the
process of data communication. This entire process of using
surrogate head highly reduces the need for cluster head re-
election and there by decreasing the network traffic load
involved.
In the Zone based Ant colony routing algorithm flooding
occurs only once that is, at the time of initial cluster formation.
As the geographical cluster boundary once defined is static
information and is kept inside the cluster heads there is no
need to redefine the cluster boundaries again during the life
time of the network. When any cluster head crosses its
boundary, surrogate head will be chosen [15] to take the
responsibility of the departing cluster head. Thus there is no
requirement of repetition of flooding for the purpose of re-
clustering. So, at the time of overhead calculation we need to
consider flooding overhead once that is, only during the initial
cluster formation.
D. Route Establishment Procedure of Zone based ANT
Colony:
Consider the source node S in Figure 4, has a set of data
packets which should be forwarded to the destination node D.
Every member node keeps positional information of its
neighboring nodes, cluster boundary and cluster heads. S will
contact with its Cluster head to confirm whether the
destination node is within the same cluster. Here, we need to
mention that, each cluster head will maintain a table
containing information of its member nodes. At the step-V of
the algorithm Max-Min d-cluster formation algorithm,
member node information comes to each cluster head and at
the same time each member nodes become aware of its cluster
head. So, when a set of data packet comes to a source node,
source node contacts with its cluster head to consult if the
destination node is in the same cluster. If yes, then data packet
is directed towards the destination node through the cluster
head.
If the destination node is not in the same cluster of the
source node, then cluster head of the source node creates n - 1
number of forward ants with unique sequence number and
send those ants to each and every reachable cluster heads.
Here n is the number of reachable clusters from the source’s
cluster head including its own cluster. As source cluster head
send the forward ants after conforming that the destination
node is not in its cluster, total number of forward ants are n –
1, that is, excluding source cluster itself. Whenever a forward
ant enters a node from one of its neighbors, an entry in the
Backward Routing table will be created that stores the
identifier of the neighbor which the forward ant is coming
from, the sequence number of the ant and the identifier of the
destination.
After getting destination id from the forward ants, each
cluster head start searching the destination id within its
member list. If any of the cluster heads finds that the
destination id is its member node, then it destroys the forward
ant and creates backward ant. This backward ant has the same
sequence number as the corresponding forward ant and
traverses the same path to the source using the information
stored in Backward Routing tables. Moving from node B to
node A, the backward ant increases the amount of pheromone
stored in AB. An evaporation process causes the amount of
pheromone deposited in each link to decrease as the time
passes on.
Fig. 4. Zone based Ant Colony Routing using Clustering concept. Here,
source and Destination nodes are situated in separate clusters.
E. Route establishment Algorithm of Zone based ANT
Colony:
Let us assume that, Source S has message M to send the
destination node D. Then the Route establishment Algorithm
steps are:
1. S unicast data-packet DP to ClusterHead(S) [Data
Packet DP consists of Destination Node address + Message M
which need to be delivered to D].
2. CH(S) searches its Member List Table to see if D is a
member of CH(S). [Member List Table is maintained by each
cluster head which consists of its member nodes’ id and
address information].
3. If CH(S) finds that D is its own member, send
feedback to S and deliver the message M to D.
4. If CH(S) finds that D is not its own member, CH(S)
generates (n-1) forward ants with unique sequence numbers to
send them to (n-1) reachable Cluster heads through multi-hop
paths. [n is the number of reachable clusters from CH(S). As
CH(S) should not send forward Ant to itself, so (n-1) Ants
should be generated].
5. Each forward Ant, which consists of unique sequence
number, destination Id and message M, is forwarded towards
boundary nodes of Cluster(S).
6. From these boundary nodes, forward Ants are sent to
those neighbor nodes, which are boundary nodes of other
clusters.
7. From this boundary nodes of other clusters, forward
ants travels to the Cluster head of other Clusters.
8. When forward Ant comes to a Cluster head, sequence
number of this forward ant is stored in this Cluster head to
keep track of duplicate entry.
9. Each Cluster head checks the sequence number of the
forward ant and see if it already has the sequence stored in it.
If no, it searches its Member List Table to see if D is its
member. Otherwise it kills the forward and as it has already
searches for this ant. Thus this algorithm avoids loops.
10. When any of the Cluster heads finds that D is its
member, it kills the forward Ant and generates Backward Ant
with same sequence number.
11. Cluster head which has D as its member node,
delivers the message M to D.
12. Then sends back the Backward Ant to the Source
node S as a feedback.
 13. When a Cluster head finds that D is not its member,
it sends the forward ant to its neighbor cluster to search.
F. Route establishment Flow Chart of Zone based ANT
Colony:
Fig. 5. Route establishment flow chart
Abbreviation used in the Flow Chart:
DP: Data Packet.
CH(S): Cluster head of Source Node.
FAnt: Forward Ant.
Seq no: Unique sequence number of ant.
Cnt: Counter. When forward Ant comes to a CH, this
counter should be increased by 1.
BN: Boundary Notes.
T: Total number of cluster heads.
G. Loop Avoidance of Zone based ANT Colony Algorithm:
In Zone based ANT Colony Algorithm, each node (Cluster
heads as well as member nodes) stores the sequence number
of the forward ant, when the ant traverses through these nodes.
This sequence number remains stored in this node until the
algorithm terminates. When ever the same forward ant again
comes to the same node, the node recognizes the ant by
checking the sequence number and kills the forward ant to
avoid redundancy. Thus Zone based ANT colony Algorithm
avoids looping around of the ants in the network.
III. COMPARATIVE STUDY OF OVERHEAD OF POSANT WITH
THAT OF ZONE BASED ANT COLONY ROUTING
In POSANT algorithm the overhead is coming from three
paths that have been considered there between source to
destination node. As per our previous discussion, path of Zone
1 should be shortest path, path of Zone 2 will be longer than
that of Zone 1 but will be shorter than path of Zone 3. Total
overhead in POSANT should be sum of overhead of all three
paths.
In Zone based Ant Colony, if source and destination node
are not in the same zone then cluster head of the source node
will send ants to all other cluster heads to find the destination
node. So, if n number of zones formed in the network, n
number of cluster heads will be there and (n – 1) number of
ants will be sent by source cluster head to all other cluster
heads, so total over head will be sum of overhead of all (n-1)
paths. Here we can decrease the number of paths by
decreasing the number of zones that is, by increasing the
number of hops in cluster formation algorithm (d), where d is
an input parameter (as transmission range of each node is
fixed, we can not decrease number of clusters by increasing
the transmission range of nodes.) Decreasing zone (cluster)
number may cause less overhead by reducing number of paths,
but that will cause maintenance of zones more difficult. So, to
get the best performance and less overhead from zone based
ant routing, number of zone-forming-hops should be
optimized.
A. Overhead Comparison between POSANT and Zone based
ANT colony using Clustering with varying Zone size:
In Zone based ANT colony using clustering, we can increate
the Zone size by increasing the HOP value of cluster value.
Thus, by increasing zone size we can reduce overhead of Zone
based ANT colony. Because, for a fixed network area, when
we are increasing each zone size, number of zones in this
network area be reduced. By reducing number of zones we can
reduce the number of forward ants which will be sent from
source cluster head to all other reachable cluster head to find
out the destination node’s cluster head. So, in other word we
can reduce overhead of forwarding ants in zone based ANT
colony by increasing HOP value. Though it will not affect
overhead of POSANT as it does not depends upon HOP value.
Fig. 6 shows the comparison table and graph between
POSAND and Zone based ANT colony with varying HOP
value.
 C. Overhead Comparison between POSANT and Zone based
4000
3500
ANT colony using Clustering with varying Mobility:
3000 In the mobile ad hoc network, all nodes are mobile. Here we
ZONE BASED
2500 have considered random mobility in four directions. Some
Overhead

OVERHEAD
2000
1500 POSANT
OVERHEAD
1000
500
0 nodes as there will be number of route fails when the node
2 3 4 5 6 7
HOP Value
Fig. 6. Zone size Vs Overhead: Zone based Overhead decreases when Zone
size increased i.e. HOP value increases
B. Overhead Comparison between POSANT and Zone based
ANT colony with varying Node Number:
In a specific range of a network, we can increase the number
of nodes which will increase the density of node in the
considered region. When we increase number of nodes,
overhead will also be increased because to traverse from one
side to another side of this network, ant needs to traverse more
nodes. In Zone based ANT colony when number of nodes will
be increased, more number of nodes will be there in each zone
and will increase zone concentration and will be taken care by
corresponding cluster head. As here HOP value D is fixed,
number of zones and zone size will not be increased. So,
number of ants traversing from one cluster head to another
cluster head will not be increased. Only concentration of node
within each zone will be creased. It may increase
responsibility of each cluster head but at the same time
increment of overhead will be less than that of POSANT. In
POSANT when number of nodes is increased ANT needs to
traverse more number of nodes to reach the destination node.
Fig. 7 shows the graph representing the comparison between
POSANT and Zone based ANT colony with varying node
number. Here the simulation shows that, POSANT Overhead
increases when Number of Nodes increases. Zone based
overhead also increases with increment of Number of Nodes,
but rate of increment is less than of POSANT.
7000
nodes are moving towards east, some towards west, some
towards north and some towards south. At the time of
overhead calculation, mobility will increase the overhead of
mobility increases considerably in the network. As we
increase the mobility of nodes, overhead will be increased
accordingly. For both POSANT and Zone based ANT colony,
overhead will be increased according to the increment of
mobility. But in case of POSANT, the increment of overhead
due to increment of mobility will be much greater than of
Zone based ANT colony.
In case of Zone based ANT colony, when the destination
node will leave its zone due to mobility and enter into a new
zone, previous cluster head will reply back to the source’s
cluster head that destination node is not its member node.
After getting this message, source cluster head will forward
ants towards all reachable cluster heads to know the current
zone of destination node. Where as in POSANT, source node
will come to know the location change information of the
destination node (or any other node in the path from source to
destination) after a certain period (time out period) when the
sender of the source node will not get any acknowledgement
message from the receiver of destination node. After realizing
that, source node again have to start POSANT algorithm by
sending ants in three zones as mentioned above. As POSANT
algorithm needs more overhead to execute than of Zone based
ANT colony, mobility factor affect POSANT much more than
Zone based ANT colony.
Fig. 8 shows the graph representing the comparison between
POSAND and Zone based ANT colony with varying node
number. Simulation shows that increment of mobility
increases overhead. Rate of increment of POSANT overhead
is much more than that of Zone based overhead.
40000
35000
30000
25000 ZONE BASED
Overhead

OVERHEAD
6000 20000
POSANT
5000 15000
ZONE BASED OVERHEAD
10000
Overhead

4000 OVERHEAD
5000
3000
POSANT 0
2000 OVERHEAD 4 8 12 16 20 24
1000 M obility
0
50 100 150 200 250 300 Fig. 8. Mobility Vs Overhead: POSANT Overhead increases when Mobility
Number of Nodes increases. Zone based overhead also increases with increment of Mobility, but
rate of increment is less than of POSANT

Fig. 7. Number of Node Vs Overhead: POSANT Overhead increases when

Number of Nodes increases. Zone based overhead also increases with D. HOP Count Comparison between POSANT and Zone
increment of Number of Nodes, but rate of increment is less than of POSANT based ANT colony with varying Number of Nodes:

When we increase number of nodes in a specific range of

network, number of HOP will also be increased because to
traverse from source to destination, ant has to traverse more
nodes. In Zone based ANT colony when we increase number
50
of nodes, only concentration of zone will be increased. As 45
here HOP value is fixed, zone size will not be increased. 40
35
Number of zones will also be unchanged. So, number of ants ZONE BASED

HOP Count
30 HOP COUNT
traversing from one cluster head to another cluster head will 25
POSANT HOP
20
not be increased. As a result HOP count will not be increased 15 COUNT
for entire network, only for the specific zone where the 10
5
destination node exists, HOP count will be increased. As zone 0
concentration will be increased, ant has to traverse more 4 8 12 16 20 24
number of nodes within the zone of destination node. All M obility
cluster heads other than destination’s cluster head will not
forward ants to any of their member nodes because cluster Fig. 10. Mobility Vs HOP Count: HOP Count increases with increment of
head will have the information that destination node is not Mobility. But the increment rate is greater in POSANT than Zone based Ant
present in its zone. Whereas in POSANT, increment of
number of nodes will result increment of HOP count for the
F. HOP Count Comparison between POSANT and Zone
entire network. As a result ant has to traverse more number of
based ANT colony with varying HOP value:
HOP. So it is very obvious that, increment of number of nodes
in a network will cause much more HOP count increment in In Zone based ANT colony, zone size can be increased by
case of POSANT than of Zone based ANT colony. incrementing HOP value. In a fixed boundary network,
Fig. 9 shows the graph representing the comparison between increment of zone size means lesser number of zones in this
POSANT and Zone based ANT colony with varying node network. So, when we increase HOP value of a network,
number. number of zones decreases. Lesser number of ants needs to
traverse to each zone to find out the destination nodes and thus
HOP count will be decreased. But in case of POSANT
35
algorithm, increment of HOP value does not have any effect
30
on HOP count because POSANT algorithm does not use HOP
25
ZONE BASED value.
HOP Count

20 HOP COUNT Fig. 11 shows the comparison table and graph between
15
POSANT HOP POSANT and Zone based ANT colony with varying Zone
10 COUNT size. Simulation shows that HOP value does not affect HOP
5
Count of POSANT, but by incrementing HOP value, HOP
0
count of zone based ant colony can be decreased.
50 100 150 200 250 300
Number of Nodes
30
Fig. 9. Number of Node Vs HOP Count: HOP Count increases with
25
increment of Number of Nodes. But the increment rate is greater in POSANT
than Zone based Ant 20 ZONE BASED HOP
HOP Count

COUNT
15
POSANT HOP
E. HOP Count Comparison between POSANT and Zone 10 COUNT

based ANT colony with varying Number of Nodes: 5

In mobile ad-hoc network, position of nodes is changed due
to mobility. This will increase HOP count as source,
destination and intermediate nodes’ location will be changed
due to mobility. When mobility will be increased, position
change also will be more and that will force ants and data
packets to traverse more HOP to reach the destination node.
In Zone based ANT colony, while location of destination
node or any other member node changes, Cluster head gets
this information and guide ants to go to right direction. Where
as in case of POSANT, when position of node changes due to
mobility, ants need to start searching in the three zones again
from the scratch. So, increment of mobility causes much more
increment of HOP count in case of POSANT than Zone based
ANT colony.
Fig. 10 shows the comparison table and graph between
POSANT and Zone based ANT colony with varying mobility.
0
2 3 4 5 6 7
HOP Value
Fig. 11. HOP value Vs HOP Count: For Zone based ant colony, HOP Count
decreases with increment of HOP Value, i.e. Zone size. But HOP Count of
POSANT does not vary with increment of HOP value
G. Delay Comparison between POSANT and Zone based
ANT colony Algorithm:
In a network, if the diameter of the network increases or the
density of node increases, ant or data packet needs to traverse
more number of HOP to reach the destination and that causes
increase in processing delay at each node. Thus the overall
delay in delivering the data packets gets increased. So we can
say that delay is proportional to HOP Count of a network.
Simulation results of HOP count can throw light on the
variation of delay in the network. If number of node increases,
delay will also be increased accordingly. Delay also increases
with increment of Mobility. We have shown that using our
Zone based Ant colony routing algorithm we can optimize this
delay by making the zone size larger. But Delay of POSANT
105
will not be affected much as the zone size or number of hops
can not be customized. 100

Throughput (%)
ZONE BASED
95 Throughput

H. Throughput Comparison between POSANT and Zone 90 POSANT

based ANT colony with varying Number of Nodes:
In a network of fixed boundary, number of node increment
causes increment of density of the network. When density of
network increases, more nodes come within 1-hop position of
source node or any node in the source to destination path. This
decreases probability of data packet loss as data packet will be
carried forward by more number of nodes while node number
increases. In case of POSANT, when number of node
increases, concentration of the whole network increases. In
case of Zone based Ant colony, when number of node
increases, number of zones and zone size will remains same.
But concentration of each zone will be increased. So when Ant
traverses in a zone with higher concentration, the probability
of getting lost will be decreases. That increases throughput.
Fig. 12 shows the comparison table and graph between
POSANT and Zone based ANT colony with varying node
number. Simulation shows that throughput of both POSANT
and zone based ant colony increases with increment of node
number.
101.0
99.0
97.0
Throughput (%)
Throughput
85
80
4 8 12 16 20 24
M obility
Fig. 13: Mobility Vs Throughput: Throughput decreases with increment of
Mobility. Decrement rate of POSANT is greater than Zone based Algorithm
J. Throughput Comparison between POSANT Zone based
ANT colony with varying HOP value:
In Zone based ANT colony, zone size can be increased by
incrementing clustering HOP value. In a fixed boundary
network, increment of zone size means lesser number of zones
in this network. So, when we increase Clustering HOP value
of a network, number of zones decreases. Data packets need to
traverse lesser number of zones. But inside single zone they
need to traverse more nodes as zone size increases. So
throughput will not change much by changing clustering HOP
value. In case of POSANT algorithm, increment of clustering
HOP value does not have any effect on throughput because
POSANT algorithm does not use clustering HOP value.
Fig. 14 shows the comparison table and graph between
POSANT and Zone based ANT colony with varying

95.0 ZONE BASED

93.0
Throughput clustering HOP value.
91.0 POSANT
89.0 Throughput
110
87.0
108
85.0
106
50 100 150 200 250 300 104
Throughput (%)

ZONE BASED
Number of Nodes 102
Throughput
100
98
Fig. 12. Number of Node Vs Throughput: Throughput increases with POSANT
96 Throughput
increment of Number of Nodes 94
92
I. Throughput Comparison between POSANT and Zone 90
based ANT colony with varying Mobility: 2 3 4 5 6 7

In mobile ad-hoc network, position of nodes is changed due HOP Value

to mobility. This will decrease throughput. Location of source,
destination and intermediate nodes will be changed due to
mobility. Position change of node is directly proportional with
mobility of the network. When mobility increases, position
change also increases. Due to position change of nodes, data
packets need to discover the direction of destination again and
that decreases throughput.
In Zone based ANT colony, while location of destination
node or any other member node changes, Cluster head gets
this information and guide ants to go to right direction. Where
as in case of POSANT, when position of node changes due to
mobility, ants need to start searching in the three zones again
from the scratch which causes more data loss. So, increment
of mobility causes much more decrement of throughput in
case of POSANT than Zone based ANT colony.
Fig. 13 shows the comparison table and graph between
POSANT and Zone based ANT colony with varying mobility.
Fig. 14. HOP value Vs Throughput: Throughput does not vary much with
increment of HOP Count , i.e. Zone size.
K. Advantage of Zone based ANT colony over POSANT:
In POSANT routing, like all other position based routing,
source node need to know the position of the destination node.
Robustness is a problem in position based ant colony
algorithm. The use of position of destination node causes
problem in terms of reliability. The accuracy of destination
position is an important problem to consider. For static
network the problem is straightforward, while the problem of
designing location updates schemes to enable efficient routing
in mobile ad hoc network appears to be more difficult than
routing itself.
Overhead of Zone based ANT colony is much less than that
of POSANT, as we can see in the previous section, Increment
of overhead due to increment of node number and mobility is
much more in POSANT than that of Zone based Ant system.
Decrement of overhead due to increment of HOP value is
much more in Zone based ant system than that of POSANT.
HOP Count of Zone based ANT colony is less than of
POSANT, as we can see from the results of simulations on
varying Number of nodes, Mobility and Zone Size (HOP
value).
Throughput of Zone based ANT colony is better than of
POSANT, because in Zone Based Algorithm, data packets
need not traverse to each individual node. Cluster heads will
decide whether data packets should traverse to a particular
zone or not. So chances of loss are less than of POSANT.
IV. RELATED WORK
Inspired by insect societies' biological models, ACO
provides a simple and efficient routing solution.
Fernando [9] presented a MANET routing protocol, SARA
(Simple Ant Routing Algorithm), which used a controlled
neighbor broadcast to find route. Compared the performance
of ant-routing algorithm with Dijkstra's OSPF, Dhillon [10]
illustrated that the performance of AntNet is better than OSPF.
The more packets transmitting in the network, the more
packet-loss and congestion will occur. These two sides are a
difficult dilemma for choosing.
Ant routing [11] can address the dilemma more efficiently
than the other, which can make the best use of the network
resources and make little packet-loss and congestion. A
`swarm [12]' is a relatively simple agent, which can interact
through simple mechanisms and solve complex problems. It
belongs to the subset of larger class of `Swarm Intelligence'
algorithms.
Based on prediction model, a new routing algorithm called
ant-based energy aware disjoint multi path routing algorithm
[13] (AEADMRA) is proposed. Simulation results indicate
that performance of AEADMRA is much better than the
others. Based on load balancing of routing protocol, Zheng
[14] presented a cross-layer design and ant-colony
optimization (CALRA). In CALRA, ants deposit simulated
pheromones as a function of multiple parameters information
collected by each layer of each node visited.
GLS (GRID Location Service) [16] provides locations of
nodes throughout a network in a distributed manner. GLS can
be queried for the location of different nodes in the network
using a unique ID of a node in the network. It is known that
there is a limitation of GLS to serve a metropolitan area, and
question whether any distributed location service can achieve
accuracy universally across a large area.
Weak state [17] is a generalization of soft state that is
characterized by probabilistic semantics and local updates. It
is interpreted as a probabilistic hint and not absolute truth. It
contains a measure of confidence in the state value, which is a
measure of the probability that the state is valid. Nodes only
have partial information about the region a destination node is
likely to be [18]. Even though the information weak state
contains is more consistent than that of strong state, it is not
exact.
In this paper, I have a different approach to achieve goals
similar to GLS and WSR.
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
Zone based routing using ant colony optimization aims to
support zone based routing with minimum routing overhead
for mobile ad hoc networks. The idea behind this zone based
routing is to allow the nodes within each zone to get referred
with the zone boundaries and control the node. Ant Colony
technique merged with Zone based technique to optimize
memory utilization, overhead and throughput.
In zone based routing, each zone member is aware of its
mobility using the zone boundary values. It allows the node to
inform about their mobility and thereby enabling the protocol
to find the mobile destination quickly with minimum
overhead. A cluster head is available within each zone to
perform data transmission and routing. The performance
analysis shows that, in highly mobile network, Zone based ant
colony reduces overhead, Hop value and increases throughput
than POSANT in all three cases (varying node number,
mobility and Zone size). So in conclusion, we can say that
Zone based ANT colony is better than POSANT.
In Zone Based ANT Colony routing algorithm, we are
always using shortest path for routing the data packets. Ants
always traverse the shortest path from source to destination
through the source cluster head and destination cluster head
(using geographical shortest path forwarding technique). So
here always the shortest path is selected for routing and load
balancing concept has not been incorporated in this routing
algorithm. We may introduce load balancing by selecting
second shortest path sometimes in case we have large number
of data packets to send so that the same set of nodes should
not remain selected in the route path always. Thus load
balancing can also be handled in Zone based Ant colony
algorithm. This concept and the performance of the network
will be evaluated in our future work.
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