Proceedings of the National Conference on Mobile and Adhoc Networks, 29th & 30th October 2010

Predictive Routing in MANETs Using Colored Pheromones

Balamurali A, Janani R, Pavithra T UG Students S.K.Nivetha Lecturer, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, Erode
Abstract: The major challenging issues in providing QoS in MANET includes energy saving, node/link interference, traffic load balancing and dynamic topology change due to the inherent mobility present in wireless adhoc networks. Inspired by Swarm Intelligence (SI), more especially ants pheromone update process, found in natural insects like ants colony, in this paper, a hybrid approach called Traffic Based QoS provisioning in MANET with link reliability has been proposed. Different classes of traffic pose different QoS requirements. Also, due to the mobility of nodes, link failure significantly affects the QoS of the underlying network. Our algorithm meets these two needs by combining both the proactive and reactive protocols along with the use of colored pheromones for different traffic classes. 1.Introduction A number of definitions for Quality of Service (QoS) can be found in literature. But, the QoS is described as "the collective effect of service performance which determines the degree of satisfaction of a user of the service" as per ITU-T recommendations. A number of parameters affect the QoS and it depends upon the type of communication. QoS concepts in the Internet are focused on a packet-based end-to-end, edge-to-edge or end-to-edge Communication. QoS can be considered at multiple layers of packet transportation and are: availability, bandwidth, delay and jitter. The integration of these QoS parameters increases the complexity of the used algorithms for communication. In the emerging hybrid networks which mix the several wireless, broadcast, mobile fixed, there will be QoS relevant technological challenges. Furthermore, bandwidth, jitter and delay can change dramatically over time, e.g. through rate adaptation and depend very much on the channel quality of the link. Therefore, it becomes even more important to support different types of traffic along with some reliability to support link failure. This paper extends the novel QoS routing algorithm called Swarm-based Distance Vector Routing (SDVR) based on ant colony optimization (ACO). Multiconstrained QoS aims to optimize multiple QoS metrics while provisioning network resources and is an admittedly complex problem. The QoS parameters used to analyze the routing protocol consists of an additive QoS class: End-to-end delay and jitter, between source and destination mobile node. The QoS parameter considered during the route discovery process is a concave QoS class, the individual nodes residual energy is taken for routing decisions. We assume that the WMN is used as an access network to the internet. Analogous to [1] we group traffic into four classes: Conversational, such as VoIP or video conference traffic. Streaming, where a play-out buffer can mitigate the effects of jitter and where no interaction takes place; e.g. watching a video stream or listening to a pod-cast. Interactive, with lower bandwidth requirements such as Web surfing and Web applications. Background, such as Email and large File transfers (e.g. ftp or P2P-Filesharing).To support the requirements of the various traffic classes, we introduce a notion of color to the concept of pheromones. 2.Proposed Work 2.1 Nature inspired approach The proposed algorithm is hybrid algorithm based on chemical substances pheromone diffusion and evaporation. The communication using pheromone is a process of indirect communication through modifications induced in environment between agents. In the proposed algorithm the route exploration is only carried out when required so that unnecessary control traffic is minimized as in

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Proceedings of the National Conference on Mobile and Adhoc Networks, 29th & 30th October 2010

case of reactive protocols. However, once data path is established, other paths to the same destinations are explored so that in case of link failure, data could be forwarded in acceptable interruption. This is greatly helpful in case of QoS applications. This part of approach imitates the idea from proactive algorithms. The algorithm assumes bidirectional symmetric links all the time. As discussed the basic principle of ants, in this approach, we have used two artificial ants i.e., forward ants and backward ants. The forward ants have two responsibilities. First they are used to find out a path to a destination fulfilling the QoS requirements, whenever there is request for data transfer pending for that. For this purpose, source produces a forward ant. It is usually broadcast in this regard but may be unicast in its way if an entry for the required destination is found in the routing table of any intermediate node that matches to the QoS metrics involving minimum required bandwidth and maximum permissible delay. Along with these metrics, forward ants also carry the source and destination addresses, sequence number and a stack on which they keep the information about all the intermediate nodes. When forward ant reaches to the destination, it dies out to give birth to a backward ant, which is unicast and directed back to the source on the path, discovered by the forward ant. When backward ant returns to source from where forward ant originated, it modifies the routing tables of all the intermediate nodes with the new experience, gathered by the forward ant. For this artificial ants are provided with memory elements. In this process link between source and destination is established and communication starts. During this time, the proactive part of the algorithm activates. This is done by sending the forward ants randomly on relatively idle paths to explore for possibly better alternate routes to the current destination. Thus reactive and proactive algorithms are incorporated in the hybrid algorithm. This is helpful in two respects: first in case of topology change (this often happens in case of MANETs). In such cases it will have multiple options for the applications because it searches for other paths also. This will provide communication without any link failure; secondly, in case of better QoS requirements of the application, which it is shared for a single path to fulfill, load balancing could be applied to facilitate the operation.

2.2 Colored Pheromone approach Also, due to the colored pheromone approach, the ants mark the paths through the network by depositing pheromones with different colors depending on the suitability of the path for the corresponding traffic classes. For this, the algorithm uses information gained from MAClayer measurements. E.g. A path with high bandwidth, low jitter, and low delay is suitable for traffic in the conversational class and would therefore be marked with pheromones of color A. We further define that traffic can use paths marked with a color other than its own if no path of appropriate color can be found. e.g. if all paths are of such high quality that they are all marked with color A, then traffic of classes 2,3, and 4 can also use these A-paths. In other words traffic can use a path that is better than necessary if no other suitable path is found. Note that traffic should preferably be routed along its major color so that traffic with lower requirements does not block the path of traffic with higher requirements. 3. Link Selection When an ant is to be sent as described above the next hop is chosen with probability Pv, r according to the transition rule

Pv, r ~
With

jN c r

X c v ,r X c j ,r

(1)

c . . . the current node v . . . the next node r . . . the destination node . . . the pheromone value for a certain color for the link from node i to c node n with intended destination d N r . . . the set of neighbors of node i which know a path to destination d. The pheromone color X of X is randomly chosen as one of {A;B;C;D} when the first link is taken; after the first link the color of the current ant is determined and stays fixed for the lifetime of the ant. While the ant still continues to collect information about the other color values it will only search for a path of the color it has been assigned. Since the transition rule in Equation 1 defines a probability distribution there is a certain probability that an ant will not choose the best

X c j ,r

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Proceedings of the National Conference on Mobile and Adhoc Networks, 29th & 30th October 2010

path. In this case the ant has become a socalled exploring ant. While exploiting ants reinforce existing paths exploring ants try to find new alternative paths. Measuring Goodness and Path Grading Nodes keep running averages of MAC-layer measurements of the link's bandwidth, jitter, and delay. Let

X c v , r := X c v ,r f

evap

+ g (Gx p )

(5)

good: BW , Javg, Davg aX avg

(2)

where GxP denotes that element of the path grade vector which matches the color of the pheromone being updated ( X and GxP with identical values for x). For all other links, where node m is not on the path, the amount of pheromone is decreased: c c m ,r m ,r (6) evap

:= X

be the goodness function" with BW avg the average bandwidth, Javg the average jitter, and Davg the average delay on the link calculated using a sliding window average and
a b X = c d

where fevap denotes the evaporation function and g(GxP ) the enforcement function. As shown in [7] ,these functions can be chosen as fevap =1-GxP and g(GxP ) = Gx p which results in 0 fevap 1 and 0 g(GxP ) 1 for 0 GxP 1. 3.2 Traffic Sending Traffic is always sent along the best suitably colored path found and FAs are piggy-backed on the data packets. In this way, when the path becomes overloaded, its pheromone value will fall over time because its goodness decreases. Once it becomes worse than the second-best path traffic will automatically switch to the second-best path. When no suitable path is found traffic may
k

(3)

the color vector for the current link taken. The color values a, b, c, and d are in the interval [0; 1] and calculated using thresholds which map link attribute values (e.g. a certain bandwidth) to percentage values of the color. This mapping can be implemented using a simple lookup table in the nodes. The ant keeps an ordered list L ant = { ~X1; ~X2; : : : ; ~ Xn} of the color vectors ~X encountered along the way. When the ant reaches the destination node the path grade is calculated for all colors as

G p = X j X j Lant
j

(4)

by element-wise multiplication of the color vectors. In other words a( ~ GP ) = a( ~X1) * a( ~X2) * : : : * a( ~ Xn) and b( ~ GP ) = b( ~X1) * b( ~X2) * : : : * b(X~n), etc. In this way, the worst hop in the path is accurately rejected as being the path bottleneck. 3.1 Pheromone Table Updating The path grade is then stored in the backward ant (BA) which is sent back to the source node. Along the way it updates the pheromone values of all the nodes it passes. If a link is on the path the pheromone value for choosing this link (choosing node n as the next hop) is updated as

choose paths which are better than necessary according to the mapping. When TCP traffic is sent, the backward ant is piggy backed onto the TCP acknowledge packet (ACK). Therefore, depending on the current window size one BA will travel the reverse path of several FAs just like one TCP ACK may acknowledge several TCP segments. 3.3 Algorithm Initialization When the algorithm starts the pheromone tables are initialized with equal

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Proceedings of the National Conference on Mobile and Adhoc Networks, 29th & 30th October 2010

values for all X v ,r resulting in an equal probability for each link to be chosen. Then the route discovery part of the algorithm proactively starts to send out forward ants. 3.4 Implementation for a four node Network between source and destination Consider a network having four nodes J1, J2, J3 and J4 with the probabilities of each node calculated as 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 respectively. A Source S needs to communicate to Destination D with a minimum probability of Quality of Service 0.3. A forward ant is sent through node J4 because Source node will find the desired QoS in routing table. Source will start communicating to Destination through node J4. In due course of time proactive forward ants come into action to find the alternative paths, which has desired probabilities of QoS. Thus, in case of failure / degradation Quality of Service, source will switch over through Node J3, as J3 has also probabilities of Quality of Service 0.3. While communicating through nodes the source will continue sending forward ants to other paths for finding the probabilities needed for desired quality of service. In case better probabilities are found, the communication is switched over or balanced through those nodes having desired probabilities of Quality of Service.

QualNet simulations can be configured to accurately model realistic scenarios in the field with good correlation on the end to end statistics. These simulations can then be extended, or re-run with different parameters, to provide the modeler with the ability to answer additional questions about network performance and optimization, without resorting to costly and time-consuming field exercises. 5 . Conclusion and Future Works We have introduced CPANT (Colored Pheromone ANT routing), a novel ant routing algorithm which extends Ant Hoc Net with colored pheromones to support different QoS classes of traffic. Traffic poses partly orthogonal requirements on the underlying network with regards to bandwidth, delay, and jitter. Our algorithm uses colored pheromones to grade links for orthogonal values of goodness and mark different routes suitable for these classes of traffic. Future Work will include testing CPANT on a wide variety of topologies and load situations and fine-tuning of algorithm parameters. 6.References [1]3GPP, Technical Specification Group (TSG) Services and System Aspects. Universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS); QoS concept and architecture. Technical Specification 3G TR 23.107, ETSI, 2000. [2]C. B. et al. Distribution of Agent based Simulation with Colored Ant Algorithm. In A. Verbraeck and W. Krug, editors, Proc. 14th European Simulation Symposium, 2002. [3]A Swarm-based Distance Vector Routing to Support Multiple Quality of Service(QoS) Metrics in Mobile Adhoc Networks. Journal of Computer Science 3(9):700-707, 2007 Science publication. [4]Paul Barom .J,2006. A pheromone aided multipath QoS routing protocol and its applications in MANETs, PhD Thesis, Pennsylvania State University [5] M. Umlauft and E. Michlmayr. Ant algorithms for routing in wireless multi-hop networks. In Y. Xiao and F. Hu, editors, Bioinspired Computing and Communication Networks. Taylor and Francis, 2008. [6] QualNet Network Simulator Homepage, Oct. 2009 http://www.scalablenetworks.com/products/qualnet/

4. Implementation The proposed work can be simulated using QualNet. QualNets analysis capabilities allow the modeler to analyze the quantitative performance of protocols in terms of control overhead, route acquisition delay, and route acquisition success rate. Qualitative protocol performance can be measured in terms of packet delivery ratio, latency, and jitter of data packets. It can also provide statistical data on protocol performance when subject to increasing network size, increasing number of hops between sources and destinations, node density, network load, network load, number of source and destination pairs, and increasing mobility.

Dr. Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology, Pollachi.

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