Autonomous and Adaptive Wireless Networking with Bio-inspired Algorithms

A new generation network is expected to keep operating and providing users and applications with means of communication while being exposed to dynamic and substantial change in the operational environment such as network topology, traffic, and QoS requirement. To establish a highly adaptive and reliable network, we take an approach to be inspired by biological systems, which adapt themselves to dynamically changing and even unexpected environment. In this paper we show examples of application of bio-inspired models, more specifically the attractor selection/composition models built on adaptive behavior of biological systems, to autonomous and adaptive networking in wireless communication systems. The first application is MANET routing, where a path connecting a source-destination pair must be maintained under dynamically changing environment. The second application is resource allocation among nodes and applications competing for wireless networks with heterogeneous characteristics. We further discuss future direction of bio-inspired adaptive networking.