Finding K Shortest Paths in a Network Using Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

With the advent of new applications, different service needs come up. These needs could be in the form of reliability in delivering data, capacity amount in a particular range and certain amount of permissible delay. In order to provide high Quality of service to Networks, it is essential to provide a path between a given source and multiple destinations which satisfy certain constraints. For a domain catering to high QoS, there is a request of resources with certain constraints by all the applications. Speed and Scalability which are not flexible in terms of Network size and Topology are the basic issues to be considered here. Multimedia applications in general make use of k shortest paths whenever communication is to be carried out between a single source and one or more than one destination. In this paper, a genetic algorithm is used, which helps in determination of k shortest paths from a source node to more than one destination node, with bandwidth constraint. The algorithm makes use of the connection matrix as well as link bandwidth for determination of k shortest paths. The significance of using K shortest paths in a network is to increase Throughput and Packet delivery ratio.