Ant Colony Optimisation based Routing and Wavelength Assignment in All-optical Networks

Abstract

Due to the ever increasing demand for real time and high capacity applications for data transfer, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)/Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) techniques can be used to tackle the surge in data requirements. However static data routing proves to be highly inefficient for data transfer. To improve the data transfer mechanism various optimisation techniques can be incorporated into dynamic routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) schemes, which will in turn minimise erroneous communication. This work uses ant colony optimisation (ACO) algorithm and a modified Dijkstra algorithm for RWA, in order to reduce the path blocking probability in a network. To further optimise performance, nodal power consumption in the network is also used as a factor to improve the quality of paths chosen. Relationship between the wavelengths allotted to a network and the traffic intensity the network handles is also looked into, possibly leading to the coining of a new relationship between them.