A Heuristic Algorithm Based on Ant Colony Optimization for Multi-objective Routing in Vehicle Ad Hoc Networks

Vehicle Ad hoc Network (VANET) provides an opportunity for innovation in the transportation area, enabling services for Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Because of VANET features, such as highly dynamic networks topology and frequent discontinuity, it is desirable to establish, at a given moment, routes for fast delivery of messages, having a low probability of disconnection. This leads to a multiobjective problem. In this work we propose multiobjective heuristic algorithm, based on ACO (Ant Colony Optimization) to find routes considering the best commitment between the shortest path (number of nodes in a route) and the lowest probability of disconnection. Simulations were done with three different scenarios: static routing, static routing with obstacles, and dynamic routing. Results were very promising, obtained with small computational effort, and allowing the use of the algorithm for real-time optimization.