Models for Pheromone Evaluation in Ant Systems for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

On a mobile ad-hoc network environment, where the resources are scarce, the knowledge about the network´s link state is essential to optimize the routing procedures. This paper presents a study about different pheromone evaluation models and how they react to possible changes in traffic rate. Observing how the pheromone value on a link changes, it could be possible to identify certain patterns which can indicate the path status. For this study, the behavior of the ant system evaluation model was compared with a temporal active pheromone model (a biological approach) and a progressive pheromone reduction model with and without a maximum pheromone limit.