TOPOLOGICAL DESIGN OF LOCAL-AREA NETWORKS USING GENETIC ALGORITHMS

In this paper, we describe an algorithm for designing local-area netwo rks (LAN's) with the objective of minimizing the average network delay , The topology design includes issues such as determination of the num ber of segments in the network, allocating the users to the different segments, and determining the interconnections and routing among the s egments. The determination of the optimal LAN topology is a very compl icated combinatorial optimization problem, Therefore, a heuristic algo rithm that is based on genetic ideas is used, Numerical examples are p rovided and the quality of the designs obtained by using the algorithm is compared with lower bounds on the average network delay that are d eveloped.