Particle swarm optimization and differential evolution for base station placement with multi-objective requirements

Abstract

The infrastructure expansion planning in cellular networks, so called Base Station Placement (BSP) problem, is a challenging task that must consider a large set of aspects, and which cannot be expressed as a linear optimization function. The BSP is known to be a NP-hard problem unable to be solved by any deterministic method. Based on some fundamental assumptions of Long Term Evolution - Advanced (LTE-A) networks, this work proceeds to investigate the use of two methods for BSP optimization task: the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and the Differential Evolution (DE), which were adapted for placement of many new network nodes simultaneously. The optimization process follows two multi-objective functions used as fitness criteria for measuring the performance of each node and of the network. The optimization process is performed in three scenarios where one of them presents actual data collected from a real city. For each scenario, the fitness performance of both methods as well as the optimized points found by each technique are presented