Evolution of optimal heterogeneous wireless mesh networks

Wireless networks provide feasible solutions for a wide range of applications. Among the applications users may find environment monitoring, Internet access provision, and cellular communications. However, wireless networks have a common problem, independently of the technology used: deploying nodes in such a way, where the resources may be at optimum performance. These resources include map coverage, network power consumption, network cost, node anonymity, and data confidentiality. In this paper, we introduce an algorithm for deploying heterogeneous wireless mesh networks (HMWNs), named Optimal Network Evolver (ONE). ONE utilizes evolutionary computation to obtain the best network configuration for a given map, in order to meet the system requirements. ONE takes into account path loss of free space, trees, and walls. ONE also considers how the frequency of operation of a node is affected by such path loss. At the end of execution, ONE provides HWMNs designers the optimal number of nodes required for the given map, their placement location, and proper configuration. Results show map coverage, network power consumption, node anonymity, and data confidentiality are optimized by ONE on either simple or complex environments.