METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR OPTIMAL INTERCONNECTION OF TELECOMMUNICATION NODES VIA A RELIABLE MICROWAVE CLUSTERING

• US 20120147782A1
• Filed: 12/13/2010
• Published: 06/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: PUTHENPURA, SARAT, Aftab, Syed Anwar, Jotshi, Arun, Meempat, Gopalakrishnan, Zhao, Wenjie, Kristiansen, Kenneth G. Jr.
• Granted Patent: US 8,953,488 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/254
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/46 Cluster building
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/24 Connectivity information management, e.g. connectivity discovery or connectivity update

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing a topology for interconnection of telecommunication nodes in a communication network are disclosed. For example, the method obtains input data, and determines values of: at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable associated with the communication network in accordance with the input data. The method then determines the topology for the interconnection via microwave links of the telecommunication nodes from an objective function in accordance with the at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable, wherein the objective function is based on a plurality of penalty factors.

Claims

1. A method for providing a topology for interconnection of telecommunication nodes in a communication network, comprising:

obtaining input data;

determining values of;

at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable associated with the communication network in accordance with the input data; and

determining the topology for the interconnection via microwave links of the telecommunication nodes from an objective function in accordance with the at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable, wherein the objective function is based on a plurality of penalty factors.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the input data comprises at least one of:

a list of telecommunication nodes that are considered sink nodes, a list of telecommunication nodes that are considered cell sites, a list of links to be included in the topology, a list of link-pairs to be included in the topology, a list of links to be excluded from the topology, a list of link-pairs to be excluded from the topology, a maximum number of hops to be allowed between a cell site and a sink node, a maximum number of antennas to be allowed at a cell site, a degree of redundancy associated with each cell site, a maximum number of cell sites allowed in a clustered microwave topology, a maximum number of sink nodes allowed in the topology, a traffic demand associated with each cell site, a list of types of links, a capacity level of each type of link, an actual capacity of each link between two telecommunication nodes of each type of link, a cost associated with each link, and a distance between each pairs of cell sites.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises determining at least one of:

a set for telecommunication nodes to be clustered via microwaves, a set for telecommunication nodes that are sink nodes, a set for valid potential links between each of the telecommunication nodes to be clustered and one or more sink nodes, a set for links without line-of-sight, a set for microwave link types, a set for links to be excluded from the topology, a set for link-pairs to be excluded from the topology, a set for links to be included in the topology, and a set for link-pairs to be included in the topology.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the set for links to be excluded from the topology is constructed via a user input that provides a preference, wherein the preference indicates that links without line-of-sight are to be excluded from the topology.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the set for links to be excluded from the topology is determined by performing a pre-processing to identify and eliminate all links without line-of-sight from consideration.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the pre-processing is based on at least one of:

a maximum allowed link distance and a maximum microwave range.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the set for links to be excluded from the topology is constructed by adding a penalty term in the objective function, wherein the penalty term penalizes links without line-of-sight.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein the set for link-pairs to be excluded from the topology is constructed via a user input that provides a preference, wherein the preference indicates that link-pairs that fail to meet at least one separation rule are to be excluded from the topology.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the set of link-pairs to be excluded from the topology is determined by performing a pre-processing to identify pairs of links that fail to meet the at least one separation rule, and eliminating at least one link of each of the pairs of links that fails to meet the at least one separation rule.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the pre-processing to identify the pairs of links that fail to meet the at least one separation rule performs the identifying each pair of links that fails to meet the at least one separation rule by running a link-pair exclusion algorithm.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the link-pair exclusion algorithm identifies links as failing to meet the at least one separation rule if at least one of:

a minimum microwave beam angle restriction requirement and a physical separation requirement, is violated.

12. The method of claim 3, wherein the set of link-pairs to be excluded from the topology is constructed via a user input, wherein the user input provides pairs of links, wherein at most one of the links of the pairs of links is to be activated at the same time.

13. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

adding a constraint to the objective function for each link-pair in the set of link-pairs to be excluded from the topology, wherein the constraint is a link pair exclusion constraint.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a report.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving feedback from a user.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining values associated with the communication network comprises determining at least one of:

a demand associated with each telecommunication node, a capacity level of each link type, an actual capacity of each link between each pair of telecommunication nodes of each link type, a cost of each microwave link, a maximum number of hops allowed for each given telecommunication node that is considered a cell site to be connected to telecommunication node that is considered as a final sink node for the cell site, a maximum number of microwaves dishes to be allowed at each given telecommunication node, and a distance between each pair of locations.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of penalty factors comprises a penalty factor associated with a cost of deploying a microwave link.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of penalty factors comprises a penalty factor associated with a failure to meet a line-of-sight objective.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions, the plurality of instructions including instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method for providing a topology for interconnection of telecommunication nodes in a communication network, comprising:

obtaining input data;

determining values of;

at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable associated with the communication network in accordance with the input data; and

determining the topology for the interconnection via microwave links of the telecommunication nodes from an objective function in accordance with the at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable, wherein the objective function is based on a plurality of penalty factors.

20. An apparatus comprising a processor for providing a topology for interconnection of telecommunication nodes in a communication network, comprising:

the processor configured to;

obtain input data;

determine values of;

at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable associated with the communication network in accordance with the input data; and

determine the topology for the interconnection via microwave links of the telecommunication nodes from an objective function in accordance with the at least one set, at least one parameter, and at least one variable, wherein the objective function is based on a plurality of penalty factors.