A Metaheuristic Approach for The Frequency Assignment Problem

Yuanyuan Zhang
Department of Communications Engineering Southeast University Nanjing, China hayyuanyuan@126.com

Ming Chen
Department of Communications Engineering Southeast University Nanjing, China chenming@seu.edu.cn In this paper, we propose a metaheuristic approach to solving the FAP problem. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides background information on the FAP problem. Previous to the description of our algorithm, some key parts are introduced in Section 3 and Section 4. The metaheuristic algorithm is described in Section 5. And the computational results obtained for eight benchmarks problem instances are shown in Section 6. Section 7 concludes this paper. II. THE FREQUENCY ASSIGNMENT PROBLEMFAP It is assumed that there are n cells in the network which will be planed. Let

Abstract The Frequency Assignment Problem (FAP) is considered in this paper. As the co-site constraint (CSC) may cause more interference in the real-world situation, we have paid more attention on CSC. The algorithm proposed here is a metaheuristic approach, which uses heuristic information combined with a modified PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithm to solve the FAP problem. Simulation results show that our algorithm controls CSC in the frequency assignment. Furthermore, it achieves a very high rate of convergence to solutions for eight benchmark problems and converges quickly. Keywords: FAP; CSC; Fitness function; Heuristic information; Modified PSO; Benchmarks; Convergence

I.

INTRODUCTION

M = {1, 2,

, m} be a set of available di ( 1 i n ) in

The channel assignment problem in a mobile cellular system is fairly well studied by researchers. A common way to increase frequency spectrum utilization is to adopt the cellular structure approach, which spatially divides the geographical region into a number of cells. In such a frequency reuse system, MSs in different non-interfering cells may simultaneously use the same frequency channel. A critical task in the design of such a cellular radio network is to determine a spectrum-efficient and conflict-free allocation of channels among the cells, thus resulting in Frequency Assignment Problem (FAP). The FPA problem has been studied extensively [1][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. It has been shown that this problem is equivalent to a generalized graph-coloring problem, which is NP-hard [7][8]. Such problems require the use of extremely time-consuming algorithms to obtain exact solutions. It is, therefore, necessary to use more time-efficient algorithms that, however, cannot guarantee optimal solutions. Most of the previous efforts have focused on developing approximation algorithms [10]. These include graph-theoretic [11], neural network [4][7], simulated annealing [12], and genetic algorithms [9]. However, neural-network-based algorithms typically yield only sub-optimal solutions [10]. The simulated annealing approach, although it may be more flexible, is easily trapped in a local minimum, which it cannot escape without expending a lot of computation time [10]. In [13], Gamst derived some lower bounds for the minimal number of channels required. Other authors [10][14][15] provided other lower bounds, which are tighter in some cases.

channels. The number of required frequencies for each cell in an n-cell network is described by an n-element vector, which is called demand vector D . Each element

D represents the number of frequencies that must be assigned to cell i .

We also use a n n nonnegative symmetric matrixC , called a compatibility matrix, to represent the electromagnetic compatibility constraints (EMC).The EMC is composed of three constraints [1]: the co-site constraint (CSC):each pair of frequencies assigned to a cell should have a minimal distance between frequencies; the adjacent channel constraint(ACC): the adjacent frequencies in the frequency domain can not be assigned to adjacent cells simultaneously; the co-channel constraint (CCC): for a certain pair of cells, the same frequency can not be used simultaneously.

Each diagonal element and the rest of the elements, ACC or CCC.

cii in C represents the CSC, cij (where i j ), represent the

978-1-4244-3709-2/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

The objective of the FAP in most documents is to find an assignment that minimizes the total number of violations in an assignment. Formally the objective is [1]:

1 if the j th frequency is assigned to cell i f ij = (5) 0 otherwise

Min p(i, a )(i, a, j, b)p( j, b)

i =1 a =1 j =1 b =1

(1)

f
j =1

ij

= di , 1 i n

(6)

Where

0 (i, a, j , b) = 1 1 p (i, a ) = 0

if the distance between channel a and b is greater or equal to cij ( a b > cij ) otherwise
if the channel a is assigned to the i th cell otherwise

IV.

THE

MODIFIED PSO ALGORITHM USED HERE

PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) simulates the behaviors of bird flocking and used it to solve the optimization problems. PSO is initialized with a group of random particles (solutions), and then searches for optima by updating generations. In the standard PSO algorithm [2], In every generation, each particle is updated by following two "best" values. The first one is the best solution (fitness) it has achieved so far. Another "best" value which is tracked by the particle swarm optimizer is the best value, obtained so far by any particle in the population. In our algorithm, we introduce parallel PSO groups to avoid local minima and obtain a global minimum for FAP problem [3]. After initialization, we divide the particles into two groups. And then in every generation, each particle is updated by following three "best" values: The first one is the best solution (fitness) it has achieved so far. The second "best" value that is tracked by the particle swarm optimizer is the best value, obtained so far by any particle in the particle swarm optimizers group. Another "best" value that is tracked by the particle swarm optimizer is the best value, obtained so far by any particle in both groups.

However, in real-world application, a CSC violation will cause much more serious interference than any other violation. If

fik = 1 denotes the k th frequency is assigned to the i th di ( 1 i n ) is satisfied by

(2)

cell, under the condition that the

i th cell, we have a new objective: Min(I ) I is the fitness function:

n m m

Where

n I = co ( fil , fik )c + ad ( fil , f jk )d (3) i =1 l =1 k =1 j =1

1 if f il = f ik = 1 and l k < cii co ( fil , f ik ) = 0 otherwise 1 if f il = f jk = 1 and l k < cij ad ( f il , f jk ) = 0 otherwise

c and d are weight factors, and it is expected that c > d . III.
MODEL OF THE SOLUTION

So the particles are manipulated according to the following set of equations, (7) and(8):

vi (t ) = w(t ) vi (t 1) + c1r1 (pi (t 1) x i (t 1))

+ c2r2 (ppl (t 1) x i (t 1)) + c3r3 (pgl (t 1) x i (t 1))
(7)

x i (t ) = x i (t 1) + vi (t )

(8)

In our metaheuristic approach for the FPA problem, the correspondent solution is modeled as a n m matrix F :

t represents the current iteration. w (t ) is the inertia weight, and we have:

f11 f F = 21 f n1
as mentioned above ,

f12 f 22 fn2

f1m f2m f nm

w(t ) = w max t
(4) Where

w max w min tmax

(9)

w max is the initial inertia weight and w min is the > w min > 0 ,

inertia weight in the last iteration, with w max

tmax is the maximum number of iterations.

x i (t ) is the position of particle i at iteration t ,which

defines a potential solution; vi (t ) is the velocity of particle at iteration

The result of

(v1 + v2 ) where v1 and v2 are two v1 and v2 .

exchange sequences, is simply the concatenation of the exchange elements of The result of

t ; c1 c2 and c3 are three positive constants; 1) is the best position (solution) particle

r1 r2 and r3 are three uniform random numbers in the

range [0,1]; pi (t

(x 1 + v1 ) where x 1 is the position and

v1 is the velocity, is sequentially applying each exchange

element of the velocity to the position. 3) The operator The expression c

i has achieved so far; ppl (t 1) is the best position (solution) particles in particle i s group have achieved so far; pgl (t 1) is the best position (solution) all of the
particles have achieved so far. After every K iterations, the two groups will conduct information communication to each other, and then the PSO will get a new pgl . The operators + - and in (7) and (8) are defined as follows: 1) The operator -: The expression positions( n m matrix), represents the difference between two positions and the velocity needed to go from x 1 to x 2 . The result of

v1 , which means a coefficient c is v1 to be applied. For example, if we

multiplied by a velocity v1 , indicates the probability of each exchange element of multiply the coefficient 0.5 by the velocity ((1, 3, 4), (2, 5, 6)), two random numbers between 0 and 1 are generated for comparison with the value 0.5. If the random number is lower than 0.5, the exchange element is applied. Therefore, if the values of the random numbers are 0.4 and 0.7, exchange element (1, 3, 4) is applied, whereas exchange element (2, 5, 6) is not. The resulting velocity of the multiplication is therefore ((1, 3, 4)), which, as previously stated, represents a list of exchange elements to be applied to a position. V. A METAHEURISTIC APPROACH FOR FAP Roughly, the algorithm works as follows: First, all the particles are initialized, and this initializing procedure assigns a set of channels that satisfy the CSC and the demand vector D to each cell without considering ACC or CCC. The initialized position

(x 2 x 1 ) where x 2 and x 1 are two

(x 2 x 1 ) is an exchange sequence, the 0 1 1 0 0 1 x2 = 1 0 0 0 1 0

components of the exchange sequence are called exchange elements. For example, let and

x i (0) of particle i is particle is pi (0) , we pgl (0) . And then the particles are ppl (0) for each group

0 1 0 1 0 1 x1 = , then the result of (x 2 x 1 ) will be 1 0 0 0 0 1

the exchange sequence: ((1,3),(1,4),(2,5),(2,6)),in which the exchange element(1,3) denotes that the value at Column 3 Row 1 of

can also obtain

divided into two groups, thus is obtained; For each iteration, update update

x 1 has to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1.

x i and vi of particle i

in both groups using (7) and (9), and then we could (8)

According to (5) and (6), it is certain that there are pairs of 1-to-0 change and 0-to-1 change in each row, so the result of

pi and ppl for each group as well;

(x 2 x 1 ) is defined as exchange sequence: ((1,3,4),(2,5,6)),

the exchange element (1,3,4) denotes that the values at Column 3 Row 1 and Column 4 Row 1of exchanged. It is manipulated as follows:
0 1 0 1 0 1 x1 = 1 0 0 0 0 1

Every K iterations, two groups conduct information communication to each other, and then the modified PSO will get a new

x 1 have to be

pgl ;

(1, 3,4)

0 1 1 0 0 1 x1 = 1 0 0 0 0 1

Once termination conditions satisfied, the algorithm will be terminated.

2) The operator +

In our metaheuristic approach, the positions (potential solutions) of various particles are evaluated by(3). And the termination conditions are the iteration t has reached

tmax or the value of fitness function of pgl is zero. The

algorithm of the metaheuristic approach is described in.Figure 1

VI.

EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS

The number of particles

To test the performance of our metaheuristic algorithm, eight well-known benchmarks [4], are used. TABLE summarizes the characteristics of these eight problems. 1: initialize the positions of the 2: initialize

n p and the maximum iteration

tmax depend on the problem.

In problem #1, the metaheuristic approach is applied with

n p particles;

pi ppl pgl w max w min

n p = 10 and tmax = 10 , the algorithm has been terminated while t = 5 .The result is shown in TABLE , and no
violation occurs. In problem #2, the metaheuristic approach is applied using 20 particles which evolve for 20 generations. And the result is shown in TABLE . The result of problem #2 violates zero CSC, while there is 1 CSC in [1]. This feature also shows in the other benchmarks. In further comparison, the metaheuristic approach is proved to perfume better than some algorithms in controlling CSC, such as the genetic algorithmthe EA algorithm and so on. Besides, the total interference is fairly well from the results. Furthermore, the metaheuristic approach achieves a high rate of convergence and the heuristic information does help effectively help lead the simulation system away from a local minimum and help the system converge quickly.
TABLE II. Parameters
THE PARAMETERS USED IN THE ALGORITHM

tmax , t = 0 ;
3: divide the particles into two groups; 4: while termination conditions not /*iteration*/ 5: t = t + 1 6: for l=1 to 2 do /*for each group*/ 7: 8: for k=1 to satisfied do

n p / 2 do /*for each particle*/ x i and the velocity

update the position

vi using (7)(8) and (9)

9: 10: 11: (3) 12: end for l 13: if groups*/ 14: end for k Update update

pi with the help of (3)

ppl for each group with the help of

Value

c d
Coefficients

2 1

t mod K ==0 /*communication between

update

c1c2c3

c1 = c2 = c3 = 2
0.9 0.4 3

w max pgl with the help of (3) w min

K
No. of Frequency request 6 167 481 481 481 470 470 470 TABLE IV. Cell # 1 2 3 4 14 1 3 2 38 4 43 23 20 7 28 38 10 54
CNANNEL ASSIGNMENT

Figure 1 the algorithm of the metaheuristic approach TABLE I. Problem # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

THE SPECIFICATIONS OF THE BENCHMARKS

No. of Cells

No. of Channels 11 73 381 533 533 221 309 309

No. of constraints 34 318 351 351 439 309 351 439

TABLE III. Cells# 1 2 3 4 5 9 7 0

CNANNEL ASSIGNMENT

SOLUTION FOR PROBLEM #1

Channels Assignment

4 25 21 21 21 21 21 21

10
SOLUTION FOR PROBLEM #2

Channels Assignment 33 40 18 56 43 42 24 64 45 45 31 48 52 60 51 59 66 54 62 64 69

In this section, results obtained for some of the benchmarks mentioned are presented. Firstly, the parameters involved with the metaheuristic approach is shown in TABLE .

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

9 13 12 5 1 6 3 11 13 5 8

12 39 29 8 19 21 23 30 15 16

22 50 35 16 41 47 34 34

25 52 46 22 44

29

35

41

49

61

[2]

72 27 37 58

[3]

[4] 66 67 68 69 55 39 46 56 44 71 73 65 53 67 57 73 70 [5]

49 63 40 48 36 50 32

17 19

[6]

26 37 42 58

27 31

60 65 72 64

[7]

2 43 55 59 62 4 7 1 9 22 32 2 10 26 29 10 18 11 24 35 21 12 36 28 14 52 35 14 30 29 38 50 37 24 60 66 25 41 51 53 70

[8]

50 47 54 61 66 71 63

[9]

[10]

59 30 72 46 65

[11]

[12]

VII. CONCLUSION In this paper, we have proposed a metaheuristic approach for FAP problem. In view of the importance of CSC, we have adjusted the objective (fitness function) of the optimization. We employ the heuristic information, such as the weight factors c and d in fitness function the use of compatibility matrix C and the demand vector D in the initializationthe individual and group information in the modified PSO and the guidance of the fitness function, to improve the rate of convergence and to speed up the simulation process. Meanwhile, we have successfully controlled the CSC. However, due to the limitation of the number of problems presented here, it could not conclude that the metaheuristic approach here would outperform all the algorithms. Further work should be carried out. VIII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 60972023), and Research Fund of National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University (No. 2010A06). REFERENCES
[1] L. Benameur, J.Alami, A. El Imrani, A new discrete particle swarm model for the frequency assignment problem,IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications, 2009

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