Power optimization in ad hoc wireless network topology control with biconnectivity requirements

We consider the problem of assigning transmission ranges to the nodes of an ad hoc wireless network, so as that the total power consumed is minimized and the resulting network is biconnected. A biconnected communication graph is important to ensure fault tolerance, since ad hoc networks are used in critical application domains where failures are likely to occur. We present a mixed integer programming formulation for the problem, whose exact optimal solutions can be computed by a commercial solver for moderately sized problems. We also propose a heuristic for solving large problems, based on a greedy randomized algorithm that builds feasible solutions and a neighborhood-based local search strategy to improve them. Computational experiments are presented and discussed.