Title: A bi-objective location area planning for wireless phone network

Authors: Saoussen Krichen; Ons Abdelkhalek; Adel Guitouni

Addresses: LARODEC Laboratory, Institut Supérieur de Gestion, University of Tunis, 41, Liberty Street, 2000, Bouchoucha-Bardo, Tunisia; Faculty of Law, Economics and Management, University of Jendouba, UMA Avenue, 8189, Jendouba, Tunisia. ' LARODEC Laboratory, Computer Science Applied to Management Department, Institut Supérieur de Gestion, University of Tunis, 41, Liberty Street, 2000, Bouchoucha-Bardo, Tunisia. ' Decision Support Systems Section, Defence Research and Development Canada – Valcartier, 2459 Pie-XI Blvd North, Val-Bélair, Québec G3J 1X5, Canada; Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 1700, Victoria BC V8W 2Y2, Canada

Abstract: In this paper, we propose an extension of the classical location area planning (LAP) problem in the wireless telephony system including additional objectives and constraints. The bi-objective location area planning (BOLAP) problem considers the minimisation of both distance costs between base transceiver stations and the base station controllers. A vector evaluated particle swarm optimisation (VEPSO) is then implemented to solve the bi-objective model. This heuristic operates in term of two swarms, each corresponding to one of the two objectives, and exchanging their best experience. A comparison of the proposed algorithm is performed with the statistical method being used by a major wireless telephone company. The empirical results show that the proposed approach dominates the operator's method on one hand, and that the BOLAP is an effective generalisation of the classical LAP model on the other hand.

Keywords: location area planning; VEPSO; vector evaluated particle swarm optimisation; bi-objective optimisation problems; wireless telephony networks; telephones; base stations; distance costs; base transceiver stations; base station controllers; paging processes; handoffs; Tunisia; applied decision sciences.

DOI: 10.1504/IJADS.2012.050022

International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences, 2012 Vol.5 No.4, pp.342 - 369

Published online: 09 Aug 2014 *

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