Genetic Algorithms in Wireless Networking: Techniques, Applications, and Issues

In recent times, wireless access technology is becoming increasingly commonplace due to the ease of operation and installation of untethered wireless media. The design of wireless networking is challenging due to the highly dynamic environmental condition that makes parameter optimization a complex task. Due to the dynamic, and often unknown, operating conditions, modern wireless networking standards increasingly rely on machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. Genetic algorithms (GAs) provide a well-established framework for implementing artificial intelligence tasks such as classification, learning, and optimization. GAs are well-known for their remarkable generality and versatility, and have been applied in a wide variety of settings in wireless networks. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the applications of GAs in wireless networks. We provide both an exposition of common GA models and configuration and provide a broad ranging survey of GA techniques in wireless networks. We also point out open research issues and define potential future work. While various surveys on GAs exist in literature, our paper is the first paper, to the best of our knowledge, which focuses on their application in wireless networks.