Cellular radio channel assignment using a sequential trellis search algorithm

This paper proposes a sequential trellis search algorithm for solving channel assignment problem in cellular radio networks. Traffic channels are assigned using a step-by-step procedure that minimizes the bandwidth required while satisfying the interference constraints. Minimum bandwidth is achieved by the sequential trellis search algorithm through the removal of redundant assignments (measured by a metric called excess frequency factor) from further consideration and keeping only the survivors after each step of channel assignment. Application of the proposed algorithm to nineteen benchmark problems show bandwidth requirements that closely match or sometimes are better than those of the existing channel assignment algorithms and with fast execution time.