Research on Optimizing Lifetime of Underwater Acoustic Networks Based on Ant Colony Algorithm

Abstract

With the advancement and implementation of national ocean strategies, the application of underwater acoustic sensor networks is of great significance. Due to the difficulty of charging or replacing batteries, how to extend the lifetime of underwater sensor networks is one of the key issues that needs to be solved. Typical acoustic routing algorithms mostly use static routing to confirm an energy optimal path and transmit information along this path. Although adopting static routing algorithms cost less energy for transmission, the energy of some specific nodes is quickly consumed, resulting in a short system lifetime. In this paper, we proposed a dynamic ant colony routing algorithm, which updates the routing table after each transmission, so as to make full use of the energy of most nodes. Simultaneously, an optimal path is selected in each transmission based on ant colony algorithm. Therefore, the proposed algorithm achieves both energy balance and minimum energy consumption at the same time, which greatly improves the system lifetime. Comparing with static ant colony routing and dynamic random routing, dynamic ant colony routing has the longest life span.