Agent-based distance vector routing: a resource efficient and scalable approach to routing in large communication networks

Abstract

In spite of the ever-increasing availability of computation and communication resources in modern networks, the overhead associated with network management protocols, such as traffic control and routing, continues to be an important aspect in the design of new methodologies. Resource efficiency of such protocols has become even more prominent with the recent developments of wireless and ad hoc networks, which are marked by much more severe resource constraints in terms of bandwidth, memory, and computational capabilities. This paper presents an agent-based approach to distance vector routing (ADVR) that addresses these resource constraints. ADVR is a resource efficient implementation of distance vector routing that is fault tolerant and scales well for large networks. ADVR draws upon some basic biologically inspired principles to facilitate coordination among the mobile agents that implement the routing task. Specifically, simulated pheromones are used to control the movement of agents within the network and to dynamically adjust the number of agents in the population. The behavior of ADVR is analyzed and compared to that of traditional distance vector routing.