Genetic algorithm for the design of multipoint connections in a local access network

Genetic Algorithms have been widely applied to optimisation problems for which existing approaches are computationally too expensive. This paper presents a genetic algorithm for finding a constrained minimum spanning tree. The problem is of relevance in the design of minimum cost communication networks, where there is a need to connect all the terminals at a user site to a terminal concentrator in a multipoint (tree) configuration, while ensuring that link capacity constraints are not violated. Test results show that the solutions from the proposed algorithm are broadly comparable with, and in several cases, better than, those obtained from traditional heuristic methods, such as the Prim and Esau-Williams algorithms