RECENT TRENDS IN ANT BASED ROUTING PROTOCOLS FOR MANET

A Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is based on a self-organizing and rapidly deployed network. In this network all nodes are mobile and communicate with each other via wireless communications. Nodes can join and leave at any time and there is no fixed infrastructure. All the nodes are equal and there is no designated router nodes that may serve as routers for each other and data packets are forwarded from node to node in a multi-hop fashion. Many routing protocols have been proposed for MANETs in the recent past. Ant-based routing provides promising alternative to conventional approaches. These agents are autonomous entities, both proactive and reactive, and have the capability to adapt, cooperate and move intelligently from one location to the other in the communication network. In this paper, we have provided an overview of a wide range of ant based routing protocols with the intent of serving as a quick reference to the current research in Ad hoc networking