Dynamic programming based heuristics for the topological design of local access networks

This paper deals with the terminal layout problem, which is a problem arising in data communication network design. The problem consists of finding the best way to link terminals to a computer site and, in graph-theoretical terms, it resorts to determining a minimal spanning tree with an additional constraint (CMST). The authors present a class of heuristics that combine dynamic programming with clustering and decomposition techniques. More specifically, the original problem is transformed, either by clustering or decomposition, in order to obtain smaller size problems that can be handled by a dynamic programming approach. Such heuristics were specifically aimed at improving solutions produced by the Esau-Williams algorithm, which is one of the most effective heuristics presented in the literature for the CMST. Actually, computational experience confirms that such improvements can be achieved by the new heuristic.