Ant Colony Optimization-Inspired ICN Routing with Content Concentration and Similarity Relation

In this letter, we propose a novel Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)-inspired Information-Centric Networking (ICN) Routing mechanism based on Content concentration and Similarity relation (AIRCS). At first, we propose a continuous content concentration model to conduct the interest forwarding. Second, we propose a similarity relation model between two content routers to act as a heuristic factor to facilitate the interest forwarding. Third, we propose a computation scheme about the forwarding probability with content concentration and similarity relation to determine which outgoing interface is used to forward interest request. Finally, we design the ICN routing mechanism based on the probabilistic forwarding to retrieve the closest content copy. The experimental results show that AIRCS has good performance.