An Improved Simulated Annealing Algorithm for the Channel Allocation Problem in cellular networks

Appropriate channel allocation on each cell is one of the most challenging issues in setting up and operating a cellular system, both for its practical importance, as the correct reuse of the available frequencies is crucial to guarantee good quality of service and good operating conditions of filters and power amplifiers, and its inherent difficulty, being the Channel Allocation Problem (CAP) combinatorial, NP-hard and very highly constrained. In this paper an improvement to a Simulated Annealing based algorithm, in conjunction with several heuristics, is presented to face the problem, and its efficiency in solving a real-world application is shown.