Improving communication network topologies using tabu search

Abstract

This paper proposes a tabu search approach for improving communication network topologies. The problem consists of finding, for a given set of nodes and traffic requirements, a network topology that minimizes the communication cost taking into account some performance and reliability constraints. For this purpose, some moves or focal transformations called perturbations are applied to a starting topology in order to reduce the communication cost or the average packet delay. Preliminary results demonstrate the capability of such an approach to improve the communication cost as well as some performance attributes of network topologies.