Submarine Cable Network Design for Regional Connectivity

TL;DR

This paper presents a polynomial-time dynamic programming algorithm for optimizing submarine cable networks, considering costs of cables, branching units, landing stations, and variable Steiner nodes in a complex 3D manifold.

Contribution

It introduces a novel weighted Steiner node problem for submarine cable planning, allowing variable Steiner node degrees and incorporating comprehensive cost factors.

Findings

Algorithm efficiently finds optimal network configurations.

Incorporates landing station placement into network optimization.

Extends Steiner tree problem to more realistic submarine cable scenarios.

Abstract

This paper optimizes path planning for a trunkand-branch topology network in an irregular 2-dimensional manifold embedded in 3-dimensional Euclidean space with application to submarine cable network planning. We go beyond our earlier focus on the costs of cable construction (including labor, equipment and materials) together with additional cost to enhance cable resilience, to incorporate the overall cost of branching units (again including material, construction and laying) and the choice of submarine cable landing stations, where such a station can be anywhere on the coast in a connected region. These are important issues for the economics of cable laying and significantly change the model and the optimization process. We pose the problem as a variant of the Steiner tree problem, but one in which the Steiner nodes can vary in number, while incurring a penalty. We refer to it as the weighted Steiner node problem. It differs from the Euclidean Steiner tree problem, where Steiner points are forced to have degree three; this is no longer the case, in general, when nodes incur a cost. We are able to prove that our algorithm is applicable to Steiner nodes with degree greater than three, enabling optimization of network costs in this context. The optimal solution is achieved in polynomialtime using dynamic programming.