Disclosed in the invention is an 
ant colony 
algorithm-based high-energy efficiency 
wireless sensor 
network routing method. The method comprises three parts: cluster establishment, transmission in cluster, and transmission between clusters. When a multi-hop 
relay node is selected, a 
heuristic ant colony intelligent 
algorithm is employed to search a multi-hop transmission 
route; and during the searching process, an expectation importance influence is eliminated and a probability for node selection is completely decided by the link 
pheromone concentration. And when a local link 
pheromone is updated, a dump 
energy minimum value of a 
collaboration zone node is multiplied by link 
pheromone increasing degree Q and then the result is divided by transmission 
energy consumption, thereby completing updating. According to the new pheromone updating method, the dump energy and the transmission 
energy consumption of the node are scaled appropriately and then are introduced to the link pheromone updating; and when the dump energy of the 
collaboration zone node at the next hop is increased and the transmission 
energy consumption is reduced, the node can be selected. Therefore, when the routing method is used, 
total energy consumption of the network can be reduced; the dump energy of the network nodes can be balanced; and the 
working life of the network can be prolonged.