Reduction in Average Distance Cost by Optimizing Position of ONUs in FiWi Access Network using Grey Wolf Optimization Algorithm

Fiber-Wireless is the promising next generation broadband access network. FiWi integrates the technical merits of the optical access network and wireless access network. ONU placement is the most important issue in FiWi as it affects the network cost and network performance. The present research work considers the ONU placement issue and proposes a novel algorithm for finding an optimum position of ONUs. For this, a nature-inspired grey wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm is applied in the FiWi network. To the best of our knowledge, this algorithm has not been used for the ONU placement problem in the FiWi network. GWO provides the optimum position of every ONU, where the average distance cost (ADC) is minimum. ADC is the average of the distance of ONU and its associated wireless routers. To check the effectiveness of the proposed work, simulation is done for varying numbers of wireless routers. The proposed work is compared with well-known algorithm, namely teaching learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm. The result shows the reduction in ADC after applying the GWO algorithm than the initial placement and TLBO algorithm for all the cases considered for simulation. Hence, to deploy a cost-efficient FiWi network, proposed work may be one of the best solutions.