Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) Based MANET Routing Protocols: A Comprehensive Review

Application of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) has gained significant popularity among researchers in the field of data communication networks. However, a MANET operating in a wireless environment imposes a number of challenges for the implementers so far as routing of packets across it is concerned. There is a wide range of research contributions are available in the literature wherein authors propose various solutions to overcome the problems and bottleneck related to routing in MANET. Especially soft computing techniques and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) in particular has been significantly popular among the researchers to resolve MANET routing issues. This technique plays a vital role in route discovery in particular. In this paper, we have conducted a comprehensive review of this technique applied to routing in MANET with respect to various criteria. Hopefully this paper serves to a perfect document for researchers in this field.