A Fast Metaheuristic for the Design of DVB-T2 Networks

In order to better exploit scarce radio spectrum resources, the second generation of the Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial standard (DVB-T2) has been developed and is under adoption in many countries, especially in Europe, for providing digital television services. The switch from the first to the second generation of DVB-T will require new operators to design their new networks and old operators to reconfigure their existing networks to better adapt to the features and opportunities of the new services. In this work, we propose an optimization model and a fast metaheuristic for the design of DVB-T2 networks. The metaheuristic is based on combining a probabilistic variable fixing procedure with an exact large neighborhood search and is developed to tackle the unsatisfying performance of state-of-the-art optimization solvers when adopted to solve realistic instances. Computational tests on realistic instances show that our metaheuristic can find solutions of much better quality than those identified by a state-of-the-art optimization solver.