Design and performance evaluation of an optimization methodology for optimal solution of cellular layout design problems

The Cellular Layout Design Problem (CLDP) in mobile radio network. commonly known as cell-planning problem, belongs to the class of NP-complete optimization problems. Commonly, the CLDP is solved using heuristic techniques. However, the heuristic techniques suffer from the fact that they cannot guarantee the optimality of the solution obtained. In this paper a mathematical programming approach is proposed for solving real-world cellular planning problems. ne approach is such that an optimal solution is guaranteed. Initially a mathematical formulation is developed to formulate bandwidth, radio coverage and contiguity constraints. Special 'ladder' constraints are developed to formulate various topographical constraints. Some basic concepts of Graph Theory are applied for strengthening the mathematical formulation developed. A specially tailored Enumeration algorithm is then used for solving the resulting mathematical formulation. The results obtained by solving a range of practical design problems show that the proposed approach can be applied to solve optimally large-scale CLDP.