Annals of Operations Research 106, 307–329, 2001  2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Optimizing the Design of a CDMA Cellular System Conﬁguration with Multiple Criteria EMANUEL MELACHRINOUDIS emelas@coe.neu.edu Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA BAKHTIAR ROSYIDI brosyidi@divre5.telkom.co.id PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Jakarta 12110, Indonesia Abstract. This paper deals with the mathematical modeling and optimization of a code division multiple access (CDMA) cellular system conﬁguration that seeks the optimal location, power, and antenna height of each base station in a service area, in order to optimize call quality, service coverage and total cost of system conﬁguration. The factors affecting optimum selection are the non-uniform spatial demand in the service area, the propagation environment, the interference among users and among base stations, and other factors intrinsic to CDMA technology. The simulated annealing method supplemented by a demand allocation algorithm is implemented in a software package to solve this complex multiobjective nonlinear optimization problem. This research shows that simulated annealing is a viable method for obtaining “good quality” solutions to the wireless system conﬁguration problem. A realistic case study dealing with the design of a cellular system conﬁguration for the city of Cambridge, MA, and its surroundings, is developed to illustrate the modeling concept and the steps of the algorithm. Sensitivity analysis is performed to further analyze the conﬁguration decision. 1. Introduction Cellular communication systems have revolutionized telecommunications all over the world during the past decade. The demand has been growing at the rate of 40% a year [10]. Code division multiple access (CDMA) has become a very promising cel- lular communication system offering many advantages over the analog advanced mobile phone system (AMPS) and other conventional digital systems, such as, the time divi- sion multiple access system (TDMA) and the frequency division multiple access system (FDMA). The distinct feature of the CDMA system is that all users share the same radio spectrum range. Several factors need to be considered early in the design of a cellular communica- tion network. Among them, the most important to the design engineer are the service coverage, and the network cost. These factors depend largely on certain design para- meters, such as the number of base stations (BS), their locations, powers, and antennae heights. For example, the more BSs and the higher their powers and antennae heights are, the larger the service area covered and the better the quality of service but the higher the network cost is. A system engineer must carefully balance all trade-offs to ensure