An algorithm for the design of multitype concentrator networks

In recent years remarkable progress has been witnessed in the development of the topological design of computer communication networks. One of the important aspects of the topological design of computer communication networks is the concentrator location problem. The problem is a complex combinatorial problem that belongs to the difficult class of NP-complete problems where the computation of an optimal solution is still a challenging task. This paper extends the standard capacitated concentrator location problem to a generalization of multitype capacitated concentrator location problems and presents an efficient algorithm based on cross decomposition. This algorithm incorporates the Benders decomposition and Lagrangean relaxation methods into a single framework and exploits the resulting primal and dual structure simultaneously. Computational results are quite satisfactory and encouraging and show this algorithm to be both efficient and effective. The use of cross decomposition as a heuristic algorithm is also discussed.