Modified Pareto Strength Ant Colony Optimization for L-Band Digital Aeronautical Communication System Cell Planning

The L-band digital aeronautical communication system (LDACS) is a crucial advancement designed to support the increasing demand for air traffic management (ATM) and ensure safety, efficiency, and reliability in aviation operations. This article addresses a bi-objective cell planning problem for LDACS deployment in China, aiming to minimize the number of ground stations (GSs) while maximizing network coverage. A modified Pareto strength ant colony optimization (MPSACO) method is proposed to derive the nondominated Pareto front, facilitating better decision-making in the deployment process. The incorporation of an adaptive heuristic information operator and a local search strategy enhance both the exploration and exploitation of the search, supporting MPSACO to generate a diverse set of Pareto-optimal solutions. Simulations based on real-world candidate locations and air-route data demonstrate that MPSACO consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art multiobjective optimization methods across key metrics such as hypervolume (HV), uniformity, and dominance. The obtained Pareto front provides a clear trade-off between coverage and cost, enabling decision-makers to select an efficient deployment according to specific operational priorities. This work not only delivers a practical planning tool for LDACS but also establishes a generalizable optimization framework for large-scale, safety-critical Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure deployment.