Ant Colony Optimization on an OBS Network with Link Cost and Impairments

The association of cost to the use of a link within an Optical Burst Switched network using an Ant Colony Optimization algorithm is considered. This creates a multi objective optimization problem for the ACO to solve by having to maximize the success rate of the network and minimize the cost of link utilization. This paper proposes three Pheromone Functions with the goal of minimizing the total cost on the network whilst maximizing the success rate. Two of the Pheromone Functions displayed promise in their ability to work toward the multi objective optimization problem.