Energy Aware Routing Protocols Using Modified Ant Colony Optimization for High-Mobility MANETs in Disaster Recovery Scenarios

MANETs play a vital role in facilitating communication during disaster recovery scenarios where infrastructure-based networks are not available. High mobility of the nodes and constraints on energy levels pose significant threats to network performance and sustainability. In the paper, a novel energy-aware routing protocol is proposed based on modified versions of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). The modification introduces the Energy-Based Pheromone Update mechanism. Pheromone trails depend on the residual energy of nodes and energy consumption per hop. The protocol proposed here aims to increase the energy efficiency of the network, balance the network load, and ensure reliable communication in high-mobility environments. Simulation results show the proposed protocol is better than the current solutions in terms of energy consumption, packet delivery ratio, and network lifetime.