Applications of Integer Programming in Radio Frequency Management

The radio frequency communication environment, for example, in large vessels, aircraft, space vehicles, and satellites, has become increasingly complex as more and more transmitters, receivers, and corresponding communication nets are being added to perform multiple functions. This paper discusses some of the problems faced by a decision maker in managing a communication network. A particular and important problem worth investigating occurs when different frequencies are simultaneously active in a network. This may cause various types of interference creating a disturbance in communication. One interesting and important type of interference, which may be expressed mathematically, is intermodulation. A typical problem scenario is thus to assign frequencies to the different nets of the network so that intermodulation interference is within desirable limits. A second problem is to add a net to an existing network, with previously assigned frequencies, so that the new net produces an acceptable level of intermodulation interference. Besides these, other related problems may be defined. For many problem scenarios, related integer nonlinear programming models may be derived. These models, corresponding algorithms and related software are discussed.