An ant colony optimization based routing algorithm for extending network lifetime in wireless sensor networks

Reducing the energy consumption of network nodes is one of the most important problems for routing in wireless sensor networks because of the battery limitation in each sensor. This paper presents a new ant colony optimization based routing algorithm that uses special parameters in its competency function for reducing energy consumption of network nodes. In this new proposed algorithm called life time aware routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks (LTAWSN), a new pheromone update operator was designed to integrate energy consumption and hops into routing choice. Finally, with the results of the multiple simulations we were able to show that LTAWSN, in comparison with the previous ant colony based routing algorithm, energy aware ant colony routing algorithms for the routing of wireless sensor networks, ant colony optimization-based location-aware routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks and traditional ant colony algorithm, increase the efficiency of the system, obtains more balanced transmission among the nodes and reduce the energy consumption of the routing and extends the network lifetime.