An Efficient Algorithm for Enumerating Minimal PathSets in Communication Networks

The reliability of complex networks is a very sensitive issue which requires implementing powerful methods for its evaluation. Many algorithms have been proposed to solve networks reliability problem as those based on minimal pathsets and cutsets approximation. The enumeration of minimal pathsets can be obtained very easily, it just needs to use an ordinary algorithm to determine the paths/cuts, but in case the network size is large, more efficient algorithms are needed. This paper presents an intuitive algorithm to find all minimal paths. The algorithm proceeds recursively using an efficient procedure traversing cleverly the structure of a graph. Its complexity has been checked to be better than those developed until now. The program is simple, compact, modular and easy to be embedded to any software which evaluates the reliability as those based on sum-of-disjoint product approach. During our experiment tests, we have enumerated several networks of varied complexities and the comparison with demonstrated literature approaches is systematic.

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