A smart hybrid routing protocol supporting multimedia delivery over mobile ad hoc networks

Routing in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is an extremely challenging issue due to the features of MANETs. In this paper, we present a novel bio-inspired hybrid routing protocol (B-iHRP) supporting multimedia delivery based on zone routing framework, ant colony optimization (ACO) and physarum autonomic optimization (PAO). B-iHRP divides network topology into a series of zones subjectively. Within a zone, the route table of central node is proactively maintained by perceptive ants which can sense link status metrics through cross-layer perception to assess the discovered routes. Among zones, perceptive ants are sent to reactively find routes to destinations as well as assess the discovered routes with the metrics by source nodes. Afterwards, B-iHRP uses PAO to select the optimal one from the found routes and optimize autonomically the local routes during the course of multi-zone communication sessions. Simulation results show how B-iHRP can achieve the effective performance compared to existing state-of-the-art algorithms.