Channel assignment and reassignment using co-channel cells in mobile communication networks

Abstract

The Channel assignment problem arises in a mobile communication network whenever there is an installation of a new base station or one cell is split into two or more cells or power of the base station is changed. Channel Assignment or Reassignment is an NP-hard problem and generally a heuristic approach is used for solving large sized problems. We have developed a "copy best available" heuristic in which we are using recursive search algorithm and concept of co-channel cells for the need of channel assignment and reassignment (arising from the situation of installation of new base stations for capacity expansion of a mobile communication network). The heuristic is proposed for the GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) environment. We try to achieve optimal channel assignment and reassignment by not allowing the co-channel interference in the neighboring cells as a hard constraint. Computational results show that our heuristic approach is quite simple and strong. It finds a near optimal solution to the most test problems with reasonable time bound as well as other constraints. © 2008 IEEE.