Vol. 8. No.
1, 2020
Article Progress Time Stamps
Article Citation Format
Adepoju A.O, Lawal O.O & Osunade.O. (2020):
Article Type: Research Article
Path Determination For Message Routing In Computer Networks Using
Firefly Algorithm. Journal of Digital Innovations & Contemporary Research Manuscript Received: 19th December, 2019
In Science, Engineering & Technology. Vol. 8, No. 1. Pp 23-30 Review Type: Blind
Final Acceptance: 11th January, 2020
Path Determination for Message Routing in Computer Networks
Using Firefly Algorithm
1Adepoju
A.O, 2Lawal O.O & 3 Osunade.O. Ph.D
1&2Lecturers, Department of Computer Science, D.S Adegbenro I.C.T Polytechnic, Itori , Ogun State.
3Reader, Department of Computer Science, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
E-mails: pojubiodun@gmail.com, opepolawal@gmail.com, seyiosunade@gmail.com
Phones: +2348137223966; +2348062160129; +2348033264855
ABSTRACT
The vast usage of computer networks requires the improvement in network topologies and management techniques
so that user may receive high quality of service (QoS). This paper addressed the inefficiency of path determination,
reduced network traffic in sending packet and poor bandwidth management. The problem is addressed by
introducing the use of meta-heuristic algorithm (Firefly) which may be combined with other optimization techniques
for efficient network routing is basically essential. The focus of this study is quantitative analysis and experimental
evaluation of firefly algorithm in packet transmission with mesh topology by routing a message from one node or host
broadcast to another in ten (10) nodes hypothetical (WANET). Simulation is carried out in MATLAB 7.5 to
demonstrate the efficiency of firefly algorithm for routing in computer network. Experimental performance is
examined, by measuring the delay time in seconds and compared against packet size for quality of service. The
simulation result and analysis shows that firefly algorithm is suitable for path determination and more efficient in
implementing open shortest path first (OSPF + firefly) than existing algorithm for OSPF routing alone.
Keywords: OSPF, WANET, Routing, Algorithm, Firefly, Simulation.
1. NTRODUCTION
In computer networks, networked computing devices transfer data and information to one another along network links
through data connection. Computer network is an interconnection which allows computers to exchange data and/or
information. The connections between nodes are established using cables or wireless media. As newly-starting
flow joins the network, it is expected that the flow should grab the available bandwidth of the link as soon as possible
(Xiaomeng et al, 2007). As networks become abundant, the quality of service received by user begin to degrade,
therefore it become imperatives to focus on the quality of service (QoS) that is being provided to the users of network
(Sunita & Zaheeruddin, 2011). As more individual transmit data via computer network, the quality of service received
by user begin to degrade, due to this, a research on computer network routing is germane to improvement. Routing
plays a significant role for providing a well delivering qualitative service in networks (Anupama et al, 2016).
Consequently, routers are free to move randomly and organize themselves arbitrarily, and thus, the network’s
wireless topology may change rapidly and unpredictable situation could occur (Onifade, Ojesanmi&Oyebisi, 2013).
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Experimental study was carried out where congestion, throughput, failure rate, and distance were used as metrics for
comparison with open shortest path first (OSPF) conducted in decades back. Recently, Odekunle, Alese and Abiola
(2012) proposed the use of neuro fuzzy system (NFS) for message routing in a computer network. The NFS uses
bandwidth and delay as input data with decision support system based on cognitive filtering in fuzzifying the routing
to select the most effective route/path with maximal bandwidth usage subject to efficient minimal path delay.
Recently, Adebare (2015) also proposed the use of Neuro-Fussy Model (NFM) for determining shortest routing path
in a computer network. According to previous researches, message routing in a network is a ‘compound concept or
process’ because the network topology may change steadily and accessible state information for routing is inherently
indefinite (Odekunle et al, 2012). Current devices are also focusing on wireless local area network (Onifade et al,
2013).
2. RELATED WORKS
A network is the typical set and connection of two or more devices with or without geographical proximity for the
purpose of communication among users. Networking is associated with structural specification, technical design,
functional parameters and configuration of devices with the installation of communication equipment’s for data
transmission. Nubunga (2015) affirmed that internet has evolved into a widespread network and inspired the
development of a variety of new applications in business and other sphere of human endeavour. Management tools
are required for network monitoring and profiling, especially to speed up development and testing (Adeyeye M,
AdeyeyeR&Gelder, 2013). Nubunga (2015) stated that support of real-time services or multimedia applications in the
presence of link failure is the significant issue in nowadays networks. Onifade et al (2013) proposed fuzzy logic
model for managing the quality of service in mobile ad hoc networks (MANets); constraints such as limited
bandwidth, power instability, mobility, dynamic topology, network scalability and multi-hop routing are detrimental to
the quality of service. There is high demand placed on the network by these new applications and services, in terms
of speed, bandwidth and accessibility which had strained the resources of existing internet infrastructures (Nubunga,
2015).
2.1 Wireless Adhoc Network
A wireless ad hoc network is a decentralized type of wireless network, the network is ad hoc because it does not rely
on a preexisting infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points in managed (infrastructure)
wireless networks. Instead, each node participates in routing by forwarding data for other nodes, so the determination
of which nodes forward data is made dynamically on the basis of network connectivity. In addition to the classic
routing, ad hoc networks can use flooding for forwarding data (Chai, 2002). The decentralized nature of wireless. ad
hoc networks makes them suitable for a variety of applications where central nodes can't be relied on and may
improve the scalability of networks compared to wireless managed networks, though theoretical and practical limits to
the overall capacity of such networks have been identified (Siva, 2004).
Minimal configuration and quick deployment make ad hoc networks suitable for emergency situations like natural
disasters or military conflicts. The presence of dynamic and adaptive routing protocols enables ad hoc networks to be
formed quickly. The auto-configuration in WANET makes it to WANETs can either be stand-alone networks or may
be connected by a gateway to other wired networks (like the Internet) or other wireless networks. It is to be noted that
wireless interfaces do not have a complete view of the network; instead each wireless interface has different unique
partial view of the WANET. It may have a particular neighborhood, which afflicts the need of routing and auto
configuration algorithms. Also, nodes send and receive packets on the same interface, so duplicate IP messages
may occur on WANET routers with several adjacent nodes. Issues in auto-configuration: The chief goal of auto-
configuration is to configure globally unique and topologically correct IP addresses. It is achieved using following
number of steps to ensure the address configured is unique and not duplicated to avoid ambiguity in transferring
packets.
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2.2 Routing and Congestion Control
Routing is the process of getting information packets where they need to go. Routing is an astounding complicated
task, and there are a number of diverse algorithms used to find the shortest route between two points (Adebare,
2015).Distance between two nodes communicating with each other at a particular time is calculated; being an
important factor in transmitting a packet directly which depends on the distance between the nodes (Manshahia,
2015). Ojo et al (2015) opined that designing the appropriate congestion control scheme that will ensure fair
allocation of available bandwidth to peers and schedule video frames to peers at a defined control rate is important.
Xiaomeng et al (2007) opined that stability is highly required for congestion control algorithm; any algorithm for
congestion control must be stable and adaptive with a wide range of scalability parameters on network.
Ojo et al (2015) presented peer to peer congestion detection and avoidance system, to alleviate the impact of peer to
peer traffic on traditional internet traffic. Congestion can occur while transferring the data from source to sink,
congestion control in WSNs means to improve the performance when demand for the finite transmission capacity
exceeds the supply (Manshahia, 2015). Previous research on congestion control iterated the stability criterions for
transport protocols (Xiaomeng et al, 2007). Sunita and Zaheeruddin (2011) wireless ad hoc networks are likely to be
the centre of future communication. Although it is difficult but providing quality of service guarantee has become
essential for operation of wireless networks. Problems encountered in Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) solutions
include bandwidth degradation, radio interference and latency (Adeyeye et al, 2013). Osunade (2012) emphasized
the need for methodology of monitoring and metric collection that is bandwidth-efficient and scalable with respect to
the number of devices in the network. The QoS routing protocols are tasked with the gathering and managing state
information and ensuring that it is as accurate and consistent as possible in real time, without too much lag in
maintaining its precision; different approaches for more efficient routing message through a computer network is
proposed in recent literature (Adebare, 2015).
2.3 Related Works on Network Routing
Anupama et al (2016) integrated Firefly Algorithm (FA) with Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict the software
cost accurately. Manshahia (2015) proposed a Firefly Based Energy Efficient (FBEE) routing in Wireless Sensor
Networks (WSN). Odekunle et al (2012) developed an expert system for message routing in a switched network
environment. Osunade (2012) developed a suitable model for packet routing in computer network. Sunita and
Zaheeruddin (2011) reviewed and compared the quality of service routing in wireless networks. Xiaomeng et al
(2007) designed a congestion control system – Coupling Logistic Transmission Control Protocol (CLTCP) using
population ecology model, it is based on bandwidth pre-assignment consisting link and source algorithm for high
speed networks) to improve the convergence and stability of congestion control.
3. METHODOLOGY
This research adopt quantitative research by simulating hypothetical wireless ad hoc network (WANET) of ten (10)
nodes in mesh topology to demonstrate the efficiency of firefly algorithm for message routing in computer network.
The simulation encompassed the above network with Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Open Shortest Path First
with firefly algorithm (OSPF + firefly algorithm). Experimental performance were examined, by measuring the delay
time in seconds and compared against packet size of the routed message unit for quality of service (QoS) in order to
determine the suitability of firefly algorithm for implementing open shortest path first (OSPF) as protocol for optimized
link state routing. The goal is to determine optimal path for routing, therefore, the delay for every possible route(s)
between source and destination represent the cost, the route(s) with minimum cost will be selected for transmitting
the message or data packet. Algorithm for minimizing delay time so as to select optimal path for routing by predicting
the shortest and/or fastest route are presented in this chapter. Manshahia (2015) defined throughput as the ratio of
packet size and the delay time. The flowchart of firefly algorithms is necessary to understand when simulating for the
efficiency of firefly in message routing. Below is the figure of a procedural block of firefly algorithms.
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Fig. 1. Procedure Block for Firefly Algorithm (Source Aiming Liu, et al. 2017)
3.1 Simulation Parameters
In firefly algorithm, light intensity and attractiveness are the two important variables. Firefly is attracted toward the
other firefly that has brighter flash than itself. The attractiveness is depended with the light intensity. Initial population
of fireflies is generated with the objective function, thereby defining the light intensity by absorption coefficient in
order to examine the attractiveness of fireflies to one another. For each of the fireflies in the given population, check
the light intensity against the next if it is higher; then firefly 2 is brighter than firefly 1, therefore move firefly 2 towards
firefly 1 for signal. The data packet (i.e message) to be transmitted from source node, s to destination node, d will
from through route i to route j to determine the maximum number of channels or hop count for available routes as
delivery paths.
4. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Simulation Using Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
Ten (10) nodes hypothetical network with mesh topology was simulated using convectional OSPF with the
specification given below
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TABLE 1.0: Specification of Hypothetical Computer Network (WANET) on OSPF
Node (Host) Path (Link Routes) Broadcast Cost (b/s)
1 (Source) 2,3 (1-2)=15; (1-3) = 10
2 4,5 (2-4)=8; (2-5)=9
3 4 (3-4)=3
4 5,7 (4-5)=7; (4-7)=6
5 6,7 (5-6)=5; (5-7)=2
6 8 (6-8)=12
7 8 (7-8)=10
8 9,10 (8-9)=6; (8-10)=10
9 10 (9-10)=8
10 (Destination) Packet Delivery
MATLAB command codes for simulating the above network is given below:
>>AdHoc_WLAN=sparse([1 1 3 2 2 4 5 4 5 6 7 8 8 9], [2 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 7 8 8 9 10 10], [15 10 3 8 9 7 5 6 2 12 10 6 10
8], 10, 10)
The MATLAB command ‘graphshortestpath’ is executed to find the shortest path. The syntax for the command and
its equivalent outputs are shown below:
Syntax:
>>[minimum_cost,shortest_path]=graphshortestpath(AdHoc_WLAN,1,10)
Output: minimum_cost = 39 , shortest_path = 1 3 4 7 8 10
MATLAB command code to view the above network is given below:
>>view(biograph(AdHoc_WLAN, [], 'ShowArrows', 'off', 'ShowWeights', 'on'))
The output of the above command is shown below:
4.2 Simulation Using Ospf With Firefly Algorithm
Ten (10) nodes hypothetical network with mesh topology was simulated using OSPF with Firefly algorithm based on
the specification given in table below:
Table 1.2: Specification of Hypothetical Computer Network (WANET) on OSPF with firefly
Node (Host) Path (Link Routes) Broadcast Cost (b/s)
1 (Source) 2,4 (1-2)=11; (1-4) = 9
2 3 (2-3)=10
3 4 (3-4)=9
4 5,7 (4-5)=7; (4-7) = 8
5 6 (5-6)=6
6 7 (6-7)=7
7 8,9 (7-8)=5; (7-9) = 12
8 9 (8-9)=13
9 10 (9-10)=4
10 (Destination) Packet Delivery (10-11)=5
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MATLAB command code for simulating the above network is given below:
>>AdHoc_WLAN=sparse([1 1 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 7 8 9 10], [2 4 3 4 5 7 6 7 8 9 9 10 10], [11 9 4 10 9 7 8 6 7 5 12 13 4],
10, 10)
Fig. 2.0 OSPF + FIREFLY Fig. 3.0 OSPF ALONE
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Results presented in tabular forms below provides a strong argument that MATLAB has a capability for the simulation
of computer networks for message routing when appropriate functions are called. Simulation with firefly algorithm for
OSPF and OSPF alone confirmed that hypothetical network with 10 nodes has the shortest paths linking nodes 3, 4
and 7 from the source to destination. The results from analysis also confirmed that the minimum cost of routing a
message from node 1 (source) to node 10 (destination) is 34, evident from the simulation results by the projected
firefly algorithm. This is the suitable mechanism in implementing open shortest path first. According to Gihan and
Wahied (2010), a reliable routing algorithm should be able to transfer packets (messages) from source node to
destination node with minimum cost and reduced delay time. It has been recommended by Odekunle et al. (2012)
that the efficiency of the routing protocol can be optimized by combining it with nature inspired algorithm. OLSR gives
minimum network load by maximizing throughput and in terms of delay (Shabbir et al., 2015). Many routing protocols
used in WLAN helps define set of protocols that can enhance the bandwidth utilization, minimum energy
consumption, higher throughputs, less overhead loss (Nwoko et al., 2014).
Table 1.3: PACKET (KB/MB), OSPF + Firefly and OSPF
S/N PACKET (KB/MB) OSPF + Firefly OSPF
1 150KB 1.50 2.10
2 275KB 3.15 4.20
3 410KB 5.24 6.37
4 560KB 7.46 8.00
5 750KB 9.00 9.85
6 900KB 10.32 11.55
7 2.5MB 12.28 13.62
8 5.7MB 14.65 15.80
9 7.8MB 16.50 17.95
10 9.4MB 18.74 19.63
5. CONCLUSION
The results shown in the preceding simulations confirmed that the performance of OSPF with firefly is comparable to
OSPF alone in delay time, and far better in terms of routing efficiency and throughput for varying packet size on
network.
From this research, the following contributions have been made to knowledge:
a) Parameters for evaluating the quality of service (QoS) were all examined.
b) Potency of MATLAB in optimization modeling of routing was iterated.
c) Hypothetical network was created and simulated using firefly algorithm.
6. FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The drawback encountered in the research suggested the need for improvement to this dissertation. The future
research may focus in the following directions:
a) Live computer network environment to improve this method of routing.
b) The need to increase the network metrics with hop count and congestion.
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