Least cost routing

摘要

A route finder for point to multi-point connection requests in a communications network comprising a plurality of nodes connected by a plurality of links 1801. A cost is assigned to each network link. For each connection request a set of all network nodes not included in its source node or its plurality of destination nodes are selected. An array of bits is created with an array element corresponding to a selected node element having a value of 1 if the node is steiner vertex for a steiner tree of nodes not selected, otherwise the array element has a value of 0. Each array is treated as a bit string 1802 and considered as population members which are manipulated by genetic algorithms. The fitness of the population members is evaluated by calculating the cost of traversing the routes represented by the bit strings.