Real coded genetic algorithm for minimizing wavelength and number of hops in virtual wavelength path routed WDM network

In this paper, a novel Real coded genetic algorithm(RcGA) is proposed for routing and wavelength assignment in virtual wavelength path routed WDM network. The comparison is done with heuristic search algorithm. Here, a wavelength routed WDM optical network is considered and the RcGA search algorithm is implemented on it. The main target of the algorithm is to find solution among all possible ones, which is most optimized solution. Therefore they may be considered as approximate and not accurate algorithms. The results are always close to the best solution. The objective of this algorithm is to minimize the requirement of wavelength in any network topology demanded by network traffic. It also minimizes the hop length between source and destination nodes in the traffic. As wavelength and number of hops get reduced, the cost of the network also gets reduced and maximizes the resource utilization. In the first phase of this algorithm, we assigned minimum hop length to each route demanded by traffic and also assigned wavelengths to each route. In second phase of algorithm effective rerouting is performed to reduce the number of wavelengths required in the network and it also minimizes the hop length of each rerouted route. By minimizing wavelength requirement, the need of wavelength converter gets reduced, so that the network cost is also reduced. Along with the implementation of RcGA algorithm and heuristic algorithm, few more parameters such as Network Congestion and Network wavelength converter requirement are discovered. The Network Congestion on each link of network is used for calculation of Network Wavelength Requirement, and Network wavelength converter Requirement.