Effective heuristics for the GPS survey network of Malta: Simulated annealing and tabu search techniques

A GPS network can be defined as a set of stations, co-ordinated by a series of sessions formed by placing receivers on the stations. This paper shows how to search for the best order in which to observe these sessions giving the cheapest schedule. The complexity of observing GPS networks increases with their size and become highly difficult to solve effectively. To obtain good methods to solve this problem a new area of research is implemented. This area is based on developed heuristic techniques that provide an optimal or near optimal solution for large networks. Comparing their outcome in terms of solution quality and computational effort proves the performance of the developed techniques.