Channel assignment and routing in multiradio wireless mesh networks using smart ants

We present our initial work on the design and implementation of an efficient channel assignment and routing architecture for multi-radio and multichannel wireless mesh networks (WMNs). Our proposed scheme is derived from the principle of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) in which smart ants (agents) perform the routing and channel assignment to stochastically solve a dynamic network optimization problem. We extend the ACO framework by implementing two modules namely a channel assignment module and a routing module with the objective of minimizing the overall network inference in multi-radio mesh networks. The main focus in our work is to take advantage of the particular characteristics of ACO framework and exploit them in designing a joint channel assignment and routing scheme for WMNs keeping in view the unique characteristics and requirements of these networks.