This document presents an implementation and evaluation of the Ant-Based Routing Algorithm (ARA) for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs).
It first provides background on swarm intelligence and ant colony optimization techniques. It then surveys various existing ant-based routing protocols. The ARA protocol uses forward and backward ants to discover and maintain multiple paths between nodes.
The document describes simulating ARA in NS2 for different network sizes and times. It evaluates ARA's performance based on throughput, packet delivery ratio, routing overhead, and energy consumption. The results show that ARA achieves high throughput and packet delivery ratio for all network conditions. It also significantly reduces routing overhead compared to other protocols. ARA also performs well in terms of