Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Vol. 32, No. 2, November 2023, pp. 977~984 ISSN: 2502-4752, DOI: 10.11591/ijeecs.v32.i2.pp977-984  977 Journal homepage: http://ijeecs.iaescore.com Hybrid packet routing algorithm based on ant colony system and tabu search in wireless sensor network Husna Jamal Abdul Nasir 1 , Ku Ruhana Ku Mahamud 2,3 , Eiji Kamioka 4 1 Faculty of Electronic Engineering and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), Perlis, Malaysia 2 Faculty of Business, Management, and Information Technology, Universiti Muhammadiyah Malaysia, Perlis, Malaysia 3 School of Computing, UUM College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia 4 Graduate School of Engineering and Science, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received May 18, 2023 Revised Jun 10, 2023 Accepted Aug 2, 2023 Packet routing in wireless sensor network is one of the most crucial aspects as it controls the way packets move through sensor nodes with various capabilities to reach to the destination node. Inefficient routing process may lead to higher energy consumption, higher failure rate, and lower throughput. Metaheuristic algorithms have been some of the common approaches to solve these problems due to their adaptability with dynamic environment. This paper proposed a hybrid metaheuristics routing algorithm that hybridizes ant colony system and tabu search which focuses on exploitation and exploration mechanism while reducing the local optima. The proposed algorithm uses ant colony system technique to discover the best path for packet transmission by considering the energy level of each sensor node. Additionally, tabu search technique is applied to overcome the local optima problem by temporarily suspending the bad nodes and initiate backward movement with the aim to prevent the search agent from getting trapped in a blind alley. The proposed hybrid routing algorithm was evaluated against single and hybrid routing algorithms in terms of throughput, energy consumption, and energy efficiency. Experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm outperformed the other routing algorithms in terms of throughput, energy consumption, and energy efficiency. Keywords: Ant colony system Local optima Packet routing Tabu search Wireless sensor network This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Husna Jamal Abdul Nasir Faculty of Electronic Engineering and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) Perlis, Malaysia Email: husnajamal@unimap.edu.my 1. INTRODUCTION Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a group of connected sensor nodes that sense data, execute basic operations, and communicate with each other. Management of sensor nodes is crucial in order to maximize the network lifetime as well as to increase packet delivery rate. There are several important aspects in WSN that must be addressed in order to achieve maximum network lifetime such as load balancing, packet routing, energy efficiency, and fault tolerance. Due to the characteristics of sensor nodes that have limited transmission range, data packets can only be forwarded to the destination node by using multi-hop technique through other nodes that act as an intermediate medium [1]. Packet routing in WSN primarily focusing on reducing the energy consumption and local optima while optimizing the throughput, energy efficiency, load balancing, and success rate [2], [3]. Hotspot may occur when specific group of nodes are overutilized to handle many packets while the other nodes are underutilized. This situation will lead to inefficient use of energy and eventually reduces the network lifetime.