Multiobjective planning of indoor Wireless Local Area Networks using subpermutation-based hybrid algorithms

Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) has become the most popular technology for mobile Internet access in recent decades. This manuscript presents a novel approach, based on hybrid optimization algorithms, for planning WLANs. Two objective functions are optimized: to maximize network load balance and signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, constraints related to coverage, customer, and equipment demand are considered. A key aspect of the proposed algorithm is its new representation/decoding scheme, based on subpermutations, which considerably reduces the search space dimension. This structure guarantees feasibility of the obtained solutions and increases the computational efficiency of the method. Several tests were performed in two scenarios, one of them using real data from a large-scale WLAN. When compared to other three approaches, such results show that the proposed method provides solutions that reduce costs and improve the WLAN throughput.