Distributed Pharaoh System for Network Routing

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Distributed Pharaoh System, a biobjective ant algorithm based on Pharaoh ants, designed to construct low-cost, efficient network routing topologies by incorporating negative pheromones and an exploration phase.

Contribution

It presents a novel biobjective ant algorithm that enhances network routing solutions using negative pheromones and an extra-exploration phase, improving upon existing ant colony methods.

Findings

Converges to shortest path routing

Constructs low-cost overlay network topologies

Shows promising results in numerical experiments

Abstract

In this paper it is introduced a biobjective ant algorithm for constructing low cost routing networks. The new algorithm is called the Distributed Pharaoh System (DPS). DPS is based on AntNet algorithm. The algorithm is using Pharaoh Ant System (PAS) with an extra-exploration phase and a 'no-entry' condition in order to improve the solutions for the Low Cost Network Routing problem. Additionally it is used a cost model for overlay network construction that includes network traffic demands. The Pharaoh ants (Monomorium pharaonis) includes negative pheromones with signals concentrated at decision points where trails fork. The negative pheromones may complement positive pheromone or could help ants to escape from an unnecessarily long route to food that is being reinforced by attractive signals. Numerical experiments were made for a random 10-node network. The average node degree of the network tested was 4.0. The results are encouraging. The algorithm converges to the shortest path while converging on a low cost overlay routing network topology.