WiMAX Network Planning Using Adaptive-Population-Size Genetic Algorithm

IEEE 802.16, also known as WiMAX, is a new wireless access technology for currently increasing demand of wireless high-speed broadband service. Efficient and effective deployment of such a network to service an area of users with certain traffic demands is an important network planning problem. In this article, we resort to a Genetic Algorithm in order to yield good approximation solutions. In our method, individual representation and genetic variation operations are specifically designed to incorporate the feature of this application problem. Moreover, an adaptive population size approach inspired by neutral theory in molecular biology is applied in our algorithm to enhance its search ability. Simulation results show that our algorithm is fairly effective and robust to different scenarios of the network planning problem. By comparing to a conventional fixed population size scheme, our method is further verified to be able to accelerate the search process.