Optimal design of facility allocation and maintenance strategy for a cellular network

A cellular network is widely used for transmitting text (i.e., alphanumeric) messages between subscribers from different geographical locations. The geographic area of a cellular network is divided into a large number of cells, which are served by at least one facilities from base stations among predetermined positions. Both reliability and cost of a cellular network depend on the number, location and failure rate of facilities in the base stations. Thus, the joint optimization of facility allocation and maintenance strategy in a cellular network is relevant and significant for guiding optimal decisions on cellular network planning. This paper models a cellular network with repairable facilities characterized by a two-parameter Weibull distribution.The objective is to jointly optimize the facility allocation among predetermined positions and the facilities maintenance strategy in order to minimize the expected life cycle cost of the cellular network. An optimization algorithm for the proposed model is given based on heuristic algorithm and simulation. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed model, and sensitivity analysis shows the relationship between the optimal preventive replacement interval and the ratio of the preventive replacement cost to the minimal repair cost.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the impact of optimizing facility allocation and maintenance strategies in a cellular network on network reliability and cost. Using a two-parameter Weibull distribution to model repairable facilities, a method is proposed to jointly optimize the facility allocation among predetermined positions and maintenance strategies.