Design of reliable fiber‐based distribution networks modeled by multi‐objective combinatorial optimization

Abstract

SUMMARYIn this work, we investigate the planning of hybrid fiber/very high bit rate digital subscriber line (HFV) access networks. This HFV variant is considered as an alternative to passive optical access network. It consists of implementing optical fibers in the access network part from the central office to the street cabinets, whereas the very high bit rate digital subscriber line technology is used in the last meter part, from street cabinets to subscribers. Firstly, we discuss the different tasks of this planning problem. We model this planning problem as a multi‐objective optimization problem, where different conflicting objectives have to be optimized at the same time. We consider network costs and network reliability. This problem is solved by two different approaches: the classical single‐objective optimization (SOO) and the multi‐objective optimization (MOO), which is a recent optimization approach that is gaining an increasing interest in practical optimization problems. MOO solves the problem by searching for different optimal trade‐offs between the optimization objectives. The performances of SOO and MOO are analyzed and compared with each other using three network instances. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.