Efficient Routing Protocol via Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Breadth First Search (BFS)

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of many sensor nodes, which are usually distributed across areas difficult to be accessed in order to collect and send the data to the main sink location. Despite the fact that a number of protocols have been proposed for routing and energy management, WSNs still face problems in selecting the best path with efficient energy consumption and successful delivery of the packets. In particular, these problems occur when WSNs are subjected to critical situations such as node or link failure, and it is even more critical in sensitive applications such as nuclear and healthcare. In this paper, we propose the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) combined with Breadth First Search (BFS) to search and find the best and shortest path in order to improve data transmission with the least amount of energy consumption, as well as reduce the probability of data loss. Using our proposal, a balance between number of packets, time and energy consumption can be determined which leads to increase the network performance. Therefore, the main goal of the paper is to decrease energy consumption which leads to increase of the network's lifetime and enhancement of the number of successfully transmitted data with respect to other multiple ants-based routing protocols. Moreover, the number of ants are optimized within the network to avoid network congestion.