1. The system of a bio-inspired swarm intelligence system to offer secure multipath fault tolerance and intrusion resilience to a distributed network, and the system consists of: (i) A plurality of network nodes, and each network node is provided with a Physical Unclonifiable Function (PUF) hardware module that is used to produce unique, non-reproducible cryptographic signatures. (ii) A Gooseneck Barnacle Optimization (GBO) engine running on every node to compute in real time optimal multipath routing configurations according to a multi-objective fitness function. (iii) An intrusion detection and isolation component, which tracks the anomalies in the GBO convergence trends and PUF authentication of nodes to detect and evade compromised nodes; wherein the system independently routes data traffic by cryptographically validated high-performance routes due to hardware errors as well as malicious intrusions. Dependent Claims

2. The system described in the claim 1 when, the PUF hardware module is an array of ring oscillators and an arbiter circuit to produce a unique hardware fingerprint which is the root of trust to all cryptographic operations in the network.

3. The system in claim 1, where the GBO engine takes a fitness function, which takes into account ratio of packet delivery, latency, energy consumption, and security coefficient based on a successful response handshake of a PUF based challenge response.

4. The system in claim 1, where the multipath fault tolerance is ensured by having a population of redundancy paths in the GBO algorithm in accordance with which the data flows may be immediately switched in case a path failure is detected, without the need of performing a global re-optimization.

5. The system of claim 1, in which the process of isolating the intrusion resilience module involves revocation of the PUF credentials of a flagged node and a modification to the GBO search space to impose a mathematical penalty on any paths that go through the flagged node.

6. The system in which the network nodes in the system consist of the signal preprocessing units, as described in claim 1, which are based on the Kalman filtering method to differentiate transient network noise and permanent performance degradation due to faults or attacks.

7. The system under claim 1 where the system is deployed in a decentralized fashion where localized routing decisions are taken by individual nodes which is aimed at optimising the reliability and security posture of the overall network globally.

8. The system, as described in claim 1, and it also includes a dynamic load-balancing component which breaks data in more than one GBO-optimal paths to eliminate complete data interception and to achieve the optimal usage of the available network bandwidth.

Description:]In general, the current invention is connected to the sphere of cybersecurity and distributed network optimization, and in particular, a bio-inspired swarm intelligence architecture aimed at improving fault and intrusion tolerance in large-scale communication networks. The invention is more specifically a Gooseneck Barnacle Optimization (GBO) algorithm coupled with lightweight Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) cryptography to provide secure multipath transmission of data, in which the system automatically employs failed paths and malicious attacks as a means to route the data packets using cryptographically verified non-compromised paths over high-velocity data.

, Claims:Independent Claim
1. The system of a bio-inspired swarm intelligence system to offer secure multipath fault tolerance and intrusion resilience to a distributed network, and the system consists of:
(i) A plurality of network nodes, and each network node is provided with a Physical Unclonifiable Function (PUF) hardware module that is used to produce unique, non-reproducible cryptographic signatures.
(ii) A Gooseneck Barnacle Optimization (GBO) engine running on every node to compute in real time optimal multipath routing configurations according to a multi-objective fitness function.
(iii) An intrusion detection and isolation component, which tracks the anomalies in the GBO convergence trends and PUF authentication of nodes to detect and evade compromised nodes;
wherein the system independently routes data traffic by cryptographically validated high-performance routes due to hardware errors as well as malicious intrusions.

Dependent Claims
2. The system described in the claim 1 when, the PUF hardware module is an array of ring oscillators and an arbiter circuit to produce a unique hardware fingerprint which is the root of trust to all cryptographic operations in the network.
3. The system in claim 1, where the GBO engine takes a fitness function, which takes into account ratio of packet delivery, latency, energy consumption, and security coefficient based on a successful response handshake of a PUF based challenge response.
4. The system in claim 1, where the multipath fault tolerance is ensured by having a population of redundancy paths in the GBO algorithm in accordance with which the data flows may be immediately switched in case a path failure is detected, without the need of performing a global re-optimization.
5. The system of claim 1, in which the process of isolating the intrusion resilience module involves revocation of the PUF credentials of a flagged node and a modification to the GBO search space to impose a mathematical penalty on any paths that go through the flagged node.
6. The system in which the network nodes in the system consist of the signal preprocessing units, as described in claim 1, which are based on the Kalman filtering method to differentiate transient network noise and permanent performance degradation due to faults or attacks.
7. The system under claim 1 where the system is deployed in a decentralized fashion where localized routing decisions are taken by individual nodes which is aimed at optimising the reliability and security posture of the overall network globally.
8. The system, as described in claim 1, and it also includes a dynamic load-balancing component which breaks data in more than one GBO-optimal paths to eliminate complete data interception and to achieve the optimal usage of the available network bandwidth.