Simultaneous Facility Location and Path Optimization in Static and Dynamic Networks

We present a framework for solving simultaneously the problems of facility location and path optimization in static and dynamic spatial networks. In the static setting, the objective is to determine facility locations and transportation paths from each node to the destination via the network of facilities such that the total cost of commodity transportation is minimized. This is an NP-hard problem. We propose a novel stage-wise viewpoint of the paths which is instrumental in designing the decision variable space in our framework. We use the maximum entropy principle to solve the resulting optimization problem. In the dynamic setting, nodes and destinations are dynamic. We design an appropriate control Lyapunov function to determine the time evolution of facilities and paths such that the transportation cost at each time instant is minimized. Our framework enables quantifying attributes of the facilities and transportation links in terms of the decision variables. Consequently, it becomes possible to incorporate application specific constraints on individual facilities, links, and network topology. We demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed framework through extensive simulations.