Analysis of the Channel Allocation Problem in Broadband Power Line Communications Access Networks

The planning process of the broadband powerline communications access network is composed of two problems; the generalized base station placement problem and the PLC channel allocation problem. In this paper, we investigate the PLC channel allocation problem and formulate it as a multi-objective combinatorial optimization (MOO) problem. Its objectives are mathematically formulated with the boundary limits that constrain their optimization. Metaheuristics based on evolutionary search are used to solve it. Two approaches are applied for this optimization: a classical approach that converts the MOO problem into a single-objective optimization (SOO) problem; and a more recent approach based on the multi-objective optimization algorithms. The performances of SOO and MOO are evaluated by numerical experiments.