A wireless network for train commuters

The scope of this project is to model and simulate a WiFi network whose antennas can be installed certain points of a railroad network. The network must be at minimum cost so that the we can highlight the benefit to commuters who choose to travel by train instead of driving: they can start to work an hour earlier and finish an hour later.

Definition:

  • A railroad line between two cities, and its path through a certain region
  • A large set of points along the railroad where an antenna for wireless
  • Cost of installing a given antenna along the railroad
  • Connection constraints: depending on the train speed, the connection between a terminal (commuter’s laptop) and the antenna will be quite bumpy. We need to ensure smooth web surfing by requiring that a terminal be connected to two or more antennas at a time.

Formulate and solve an Optimization model for this problem. Then define a simulation model and run it to highlight the transient phase at each connection change between two antennas.

The data of a set of instances will provided soon.