A shortest path routing algorithm using Hopfield neural network with an improved energy function

A shortest path routing algorithm using the Hopfield neural network with a modified Lyapunov function is proposed. The modified version of the Lyapunov energy function for an optimal routing problem is proposed for determining routing order for a source and multiple destinations. The proposed energy function mainly prevents the solution path from having loops and partitions. Experiments are performed on 3000 networks of up to 50 nodes with randomly selected link costs. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with several conventional algorithms including Ali and Kamoun's, Park and Choi's, and Ahn and Ramakrishna's algorithms in terms of the route optimality and convergence rate. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms conventional methods in all cases of experiments. The proposed algorithm particularly shows significant improvements on the route optimality and convergence rate over conventional algorithms when the size of the network approaches 50 nodes.