A jumping-genes paradigm for optimizing factory WLAN network

In this paper, a jumping-genes paradigm is proposed for optimizing the wireless local area network for an integrated-circuit factory. Through the base station placement, not only the best quality of service of the network is guaranteed, but also the performance of the network can be a tradeoff with the number of allowable base stations. This provides a greater flexibility for the designer when the factory environment such as physical space, building structure, equipment, and cost are the significant parts of the overall design criteria. The main feature of this optimization scheme is its capacity to yield the extreme minmax solutions under a specific allowable design, power-loss threshold. It provides a much wider range of solutions for selection, which includes the ultimate low-cost design without sacrificing the performance or vice versa. The obtained results revealed from this study indicated that the jumping-genes paradigm is an effective and reliable methodology for this type of design problem. © 2007 IEEE.