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On a facility location problem with applications to tele-diagnostic

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Abstract

Consider an undirected graph G modelling a network. Each vertex in the graph contains some physical devices, which can be monitored and possibly repaired from a remote site in case they become faulty. We assume that there can be two kinds of faults in the system: soft faults, which can be repaired remotely from another site (i.e., a monitor), and severe faults which cannot be repaired remotely and require further (possibly human) interventions. We assume that soft faults happen with some fixed probability λ, 0 < λ ≤ 1. We investigate the problem of locating monitors in the network so as to minimize the total expected communication cost per fault. We formalize such a problem as a location problem with a cost function depending on λ and study some properties of the optimal solutions. The latter are exploited for investigating the complexity of the problem and providing efficient approximation algorithms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo, M. Picone, Via dei Taurini, 19, 00185, Rome, Italy

    N. Apollonio

  2. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Impresa, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Viale del Politecnico, 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    M. Caramia

  3. Dipartimento di Informatica, Sistemi e Produzione, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Viale del Politecnico, 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    G. F. Italiano

Authors
  1. N. Apollonio
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  2. M. Caramia
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  3. G. F. Italiano
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Correspondence to M. Caramia.

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Apollonio, N., Caramia, M. & Italiano, G.F. On a facility location problem with applications to tele-diagnostic. Optim Lett 7, 1179–1192 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-012-0495-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-012-0495-3

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