Ant System based Anycast Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Luo Juan, Song Chen, Zhou Chao

School of Computer and Communication, Hunan University, Changsha, China
Email: juanluo@hnu.cn, sc830331@sina.com, tiao-0903@163.com
Abstract
Anycast is a mechanism that it sends the data groups to
the nearest interface during which they have the same
anycast address. Ant colony system, a population-based
algorithm, provides natural and intrinsic way of exploration
of search space in optimization settings in determining
optimal anycast tree. In this paper, we propose a sink
selection heuristic algorithm called Minimum Ant-based
Data Fusion Tree(MADFT) for energy constraint wireless
sensor networks. Different from existing schemes, MADAT
not only optimizes over the data transmission cost, but also
incorporates the cost for data fusion which can be
significant for emerging sensor networks with vectorial data
and/or security requirements. Via simulation, it is shown
that this algorithm has excellent performance behavior and
provides a near-optimal solution.
Keywords: wireless sensor networks, data aggregation,
anycast routing, ant colony system
1. Introduction
Wireless sensor networks have attracted a plethora of
research efforts due to their vast potential applications. In
particular, extensive research work has been devoted to
providing energy efficient routing algorithms for data
gathering
[1]
. While some of these approaches assume
statistically independent information and have developed
shortest path tree-based routing strategies
[2]
, others have
considered the more realistic case of correlated data
gathering
[3]
.
For the case when multiple sinks are present, there has
been little research to-date on addressing optimal sink
selection for anycast routing where anycast is defined in the
sense that each source node must send all its locally
generated data to only one sink. Indeed, the cost for data
aggregation may not be negligible for certain applications.
Energy consumption of beam forming algorithm for acoustic
signal fusion has been shown to be on the same order of that
for data transmission
[4-5]
.
In this paper, we design a sink selection heuristic
algorithm called Minimum Ant-based Data Fusion
Tree(MADFT) for energy constraint wireless sensor
networks.
2. System Model and The Anycast Problem
Formulation
2.1 Network Model
A sensor network can be modeled as a graph G = (V,E)
where V denotes the set of nodes and E the set of edges
representing the communication links between pairs of
sensors. It assumes that a set S V of k nodes are data
sources of interests and the sensed data need to be gathered
at a closest sink node t V respectively, where it is further
processed.
Fig 1. Anycast Network Model
In Fig. 1, gray circles represent sensor nodes generating
source data, dashed lines are possible communication links
among the nodes, and the solid lines compose a part of
possible anycast routing tree for data gathering. We assume
that data aggregation can potentially take place at any
intermediate node along the route: an intermediate node can
explore the redundancy among multiple child-nodes data
and aggregate all into one compressed data stream. Since
data fusion is performed by intermediate nodes to aggregate
their own data with their childrens, in order to avoid
confusion, we use w(x) to denote the temporary weight of a
node before data fusion and use w(x) to denote the weight of
a node after data fusion.
2.2 Correlation and Data Aggregation
To accommodate a variety of applications, we do not
constrain ourselves to any particular model on data
aggregation. The only assumption we make is that if the data
of nodes u and v is fused at v, the resulting amount of data is
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
sink1
sink2
n
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not less than either of the component data. In other words,
we assume
w(v) max{w(u), w(v)}. (1)
And evidently we shall have w(v) w(u)+ w(v).
Otherwise, aggregation shall not be performed at all and the
problem becomes trivial.
It assumes that the aggregation process for multiple
inputs at a particular point is performed step by stepso the
above formula is adequate in characterizing the fusion
process. The justification of this assumption lies in the
resource limitation of sensor nodes. Storing multiple inputs
and fusing them at once may be difficult for sensors as it
requires large memory and additional processing power.
Second, data reported from different sensors cannot arrive at
the same time, either due to the shared wireless medium or
various intermediate nodes and processing. Therefore, fusing
existing data with the newly received when it arrives is a
natural solution. In other words, in step by step fusion
manner, the fusion point aggregates its own data with one
input first, and next fuses the aggregation result with another
input. This process will be repeated until all the inputs are
aggregated. For example, in Fig. 1, node d fuses data from
node c with its original data and saves it as its temporary
data, then node d will aggregate it again with the data from
node b and sends the final result along its path to sink 2.
The transmission cost over an edge e depends on two
factors: the unit cost of the link for transmitting data from u
to v, and the amount of data to be transmitted. The latter
factor is simply w(e).in order to simplify our model, we
abstract the unit cost as c(e) and thus the transmission cost
t(e) is:
t(e) = w(e)c(e). (2)
Notice that c(e) is link-dependent and hence can
accommodate various conditions per link, for example,
different distances between nodes and local congestion
situations.
The fusion cost over an edge e depends on the amount
of data to be fused as well as the algorithms utilized. In this
paper, the fusion cost is expressed by a general function q(x),
such that the cost for fusing the data of nodes u and v at node
v is given as
f(e) = q(w(u), w(v)) (3)
Although both transmission and fusion costs are link-
based, we remark that they cannot be simply combined
together and hence rely on existing techniques solely based
on the transmission cost to solve this problem. The reason is
that the fusion cost on an edge is determined by the inputs of
the fusion function. The inputs include both the incoming
data from other nodes and the data produced by the fusion
point itself. On the contrary, the transmission cost on an edge
is only determined by the weight of the start point of the
edge. In other words, for a fusion point, the transmission cost
is only determined by the output of the fusion function. More
evidently, this can be seen from Equations (2) and (3).
Given the source nodes set S and sinks T, our objective
is to design an anycast routing algorithm that minimizes the
energy consumption when delivering data from all source
nodes in S to the sinks T. Mathematically, the goal is to find
a connected subgraph G* = (V* ,E*) G, which contains
all sources (S V*) and the sinks (t V*), such that the
following sum is minimized:
XeE(f(e) + t(e)) (4)
Different from existing work, the objective function
includes both transmission and fusion costs. Therefore, our
objective next is to find a optimal anycast routing tree that
is the solution to Equation (4) which minimizes the total
energy consumption.
3. MADFT Algorithm Design
In ACO(Ant colony optimization) a colony of artificial
ants is used to construct solutions guided by the pheromone
trails and heuristic information they are not strong or very
intelligent; but they successfully make the colony a highly
organized society. This functionality of real ant colonies is
exploited in artificial ant colonies in order to solve
Optimization problems
[6,7]
.
A.Ant Colony Optimization for Optimal Anycast Tree
In MADFT, given a set of source nodes constructs
multi-aggregation trees rooted in sinks associated with above
cost(transmission cost and fusion cost) which is the local
best aggregation trees. The algorithm iterates to search the
global best and the convergence of algorithm gives the
optimal anycast routing trees from combinatorial space.
Thus, the best anycast routing trees constructed by ant
routing in iterations is remembered. Further, giving early
aggregation more weight in cost function will converge in
optimal aggregation points.
The Algorithm as follows: first, assigns ants to source
nodes, the route is constructed by one of the ants in which
other ants search the nearest point of previous discovered
route. The choose formula is Probability function composed
of pheromones and costs in order to find the minimum total
cost path. The points where multiple ants join are
aggregation nodes. If a source node is in the path of previous
discovered route the ant lies in the node stop the search,
because the optimal route is founded by the previous ant. If a
source node is not in the path of previous discovered route,
the ant lies in the node try to find shortest route to closest
sink and or finds closest aggregation point of the route
searched by previous ants. Then the discovered path are
given weight which indicates heuristics for reaching to
destination sinks or nearest aggregation point and pheromone
trails is the heuristics to communicate other ants of the route
discovered. Ants tries to follow the route to get pheromone
eventually converges to the optimal route. Non-optimal route
pheromone gets evaporated with time. We then repeat this
process on the new set until the optimal anycast tree rooted
in sinks is achieved .data aggregation may arise in any nodes
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on the optimal tree . The detailed algorithm is presented
below.
An artificial ant placed randomly in nodes and during
each iteration chooses next node according to the rule: First
each ant located at node i judges if destination sinks are
among the neighbors of node i. if some destination sink t is
node i neighbor ,ant located at node i stop searching, which
avoid a node near one sink go through long length get to
other sink. If not, then each ant located at node i hops to node
j selected among the neighbors that have not yet been visited
(except destination sinks)according to probability.
Probability that ant k in node i will go to node j:

[ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ]




) ( ) (
) (
) (
t ij t ij
ij t ij
t P
k
i
N i
k
ij

(5)
Where
ij ij
d t / 1 ) ( =
,
ij
d
is a priori known heuristic
information: cost function (transmission cost and fusion
cost),
) (t
ij

is the pheromone strength number of the edge

between node i and node j at time t. Parameters and
determine how much the pheromone trail and heuristic
information can influence the ants behaviors.
k
i
N
represents the feasible neighborhood of ant k; that
is, the set of neighbors which ant k has not yet visited.
Formula (5) expresses the transition probability from i toj
increases along with pheromones increasing, and decreases
with cost s increasing. Ant prefers to more pheromone and
short cost.
For each ant, it updates the pheromone intension of
every edge. Which taking the formula as follows:
v
k
ij ij ij
m
m
+ =
(6)
{
) ( 1
0
t tabu j
otherwise
j
k

=

Where mk is the random points data of ant k .mv is
the last nodes data before sink in the path of ant k
discovered. tabuk ( t ) is tabu list that ant k has visited point
at time t , and it can avoid ants swaying between two point.

In the algorithm, Once all ant complete one cycle the

global updating rule is implemented as follows. Once all ants
have built their tours, pheromone is updated on all edges
according to
t total
ij ij
cos
) 1 (

+ =
(7)
where

are ACO parameters ,total cost is obtained

from first pass.For other nodes is not visited in first
evaporates more rapidly for lower values:
ij ij
= ) 1 (
(8)
The
ij
d
is weighted function of cost (transmission and
fusion cost )as follows:
) ( ) ( e f e t d
ij
+ =
(9)
Ant choose the next node with cost is small in order to
minimum the total energy consumption. The algorithm keeps
running until the best solution found or until the defined
termination condition reached.
4. Simulation
In this section we perform a comparison between
MADFT and other algorithms such as Greedy Incremental
Tree(GIT), Center at Nearest Source(CNS).
4.1 Simulation Environment
The algorithm is simulated in c++ with a setting of
sensor network of 100 nodes. The neighborhood is obtained
from the random topology, which we assure definite
connectivity. It assumes that each source node selected
stochastically produces one 500-byte packet as original
sensed data in each round and sends the data to the closted
sink located in sensor area. We instantiate unit transmission
cost on each edge, c(e), using the first order radio model
presented in [8]. The transmission cost for sending J amount
of information from one node to another node d distance
away is given by J(
1
dr +

) when d < rc.We set r = 2 and

1
= 100pJ/bit/m2 to calculate the energy consumption on
the transmit amplifier. The typical value of

is 10
100nJ/bit and is set to 50nJ/bit in our simulation.
If two nodes are more than rs distance apart, simply the
correlation coefficient is 0. Otherwise, the correlation
coefficient is
1
= 1 d/rs , where d denotes the distance
between the nodes. By varying the correlation range rs, we
can control the average correlation coefficient of the
network.
In order to distinguish the correlation between data
originated from two nodes and that among aggregated data,
we use a forgetting factor on the correlation coefficient
among aggregated data. For the fusion cost, in the
simulation, we assume that q(x, y) =

x (x + y), where

denotes fusion cost of unit data. In other words, fusion cost is

linear with the total amount of data to be fused.
4.2 Simulation result
Figure 2 shows by increasing the number of sinks from
1 to 5, MADFT performs perfectly as shown in Figure 2 This
occurs because traffic loads have been balanced among 5
sinks.
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0
0
!00
!0
?00
! ? 3 +
uum|: o :`ul
t
o
t
u
'

o
:
t

m
|
)
C\S
0TT
M^DlT
Fig 2. Comparison of total cost of numbers of sinks
0
!
?
3
+

8
!0 ! ?0 ? 30 3 +0
ommuu`ut`ou uu_ m)
t
o
t
u
'

o
:
t

m
|
)
C\S
0TT
M^DlT
Fig 3. rs = 1000m to simulate

1 1
In Figure 3 ,we study network connectivitys impact on
the performance of routing algorithms. We set

, the fusion
cost for unit data, to be 15nJ/bit.Again the cases for rs =
1000m. As MADFT explicitly considers fusion cost, this
phenomenon can be captured and exploited. On the contrary,
CNS and GIT results in fixed routing structures according to
network topology, and hence can not adapt to the change of
data correlation. Therefore, When

1 1, MADFT
performs better than all other algorithms. MADFT can
balance between data aggregation and direct transmission
and thus produce better performance. Longer transmission
range and thus better network connectivity of the network is
in favor of MADFT as it can employ more direct shortest
paths to prevent unnecessary fusion cost at each node.
0
?0
+0
b0
80
!00
!
?

!
0
0
?
0
0
+
0
0
8
0
0
!
0
0
0
o'ut`ou uu_m)
t
o
t
u
'

o
:
t

m
|
)
C\S
0TT
M^DlT
Fig 4. Comparison of total cost of cost ratio
in Figure 4, we fix the transmission range of the sensor
nodes and study the impact of correlation coefficient on the
anycast routing performance. Here, we set the unit fusion
cost

is set to be 15nJ/bit. We increase rs from 1 to 1000m

which corresponds to varying

1 from 0 to 1.
As described in former Section , the fusion cost per unit
data may vary widely from network to network. Our
experiments show that MADFT can adapt well to a wide
range of fusion costs and hence applicable to a variety of
applications.
6. Conclusion
We propose Minimum Ant-based Data Fusion
Tree(MADFT) , a routing algorithm for gathering correlated
data in sensor networks. MADFT not only optimizes over
both the transmission and fusion costs, but also adopts ant
colony system to achieve the optimal solution. Analytical
and experimental results show that MADFT adapts well to
varying network conditions ,is a energy efficiency
algorithm. As an ongoing effort ,we are designing an
algorithm based on MADFT that can be executed in
dynamic sensor networks.
Acknowledgements
This work is partially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China , Grant No.60673061, the
National Research Foundation for the Doctoral Program of
Higher Education of China, Grant No.2006053202 , the
National Science Foundation of Hunan Province of China
under Grant No. 06JJ50111, 06JJ50113. the Scientific and
technological project in Changsha City under Grant
NO.K069015-12.
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