Ant colony optimization for broadcasting in sensor networks under a realistic antenna model

Most, if not all, works from the literature dealing with minimum energy broadcasting in wireless ad-hoc networks such as sensor networks consider antenna models that allow the adjustment of the emission power to any desired real value from zero up to the maximum sensing range. However, looking at the currently available hardware shows that these antenna models are not very realistic. In this work we therefore adapt the currently best available algorithm for minimum energy broadcasting for a more realistic antenna model which only offers few different levels of emission power. The obtained results show that this ant colony optimization algorithm performs well in comparison to a standard heuristic known from the literature.