A hybrid exact-ACO algorithm for the joint scheduling, power and cluster assignment in cooperative wireless networks
This work addresses the lack of effective optimization models and algorithms for base station cooperation in wireless networks, which is an incremental improvement for network design.
The authors tackled the problem of optimizing joint scheduling, power, and cluster assignment in cooperative wireless networks by generalizing classical network design to include cooperation, developing a strong formulation, and creating a hybrid exact-ACO algorithm, achieving performance assessed on realistic WiMAX instances.
Base station cooperation (BSC) has recently arisen as a promising way to increase the capacity of a wireless network. Implementing BSC adds a new design dimension to the classical wireless network design problem: how to define the subset of base stations (clusters) that coordinate to serve a user. Though the problem of forming clusters has been extensively discussed from a technical point of view, there is still a lack of effective optimization models for its representation and algorithms for its solution. In this work, we make a further step towards filling such gap: 1) we generalize the classical network design problem by adding cooperation as an additional decision dimension; 2) we develop a strong formulation for the resulting problem; 3) we define a new hybrid solution algorithm that combines exact large neighborhood search and ant colony optimization. Finally, we assess the performance of our new model and algorithm on a set of realistic instances of a WiMAX network.