1

SYS 6050 Homework 2

1 Problem Definition

As employees of a cellular phone company, the team has been tasked with choosing the
location of a cell phone tower on a new plot of land that the company has just
purchased. The property is square and covers several square miles of land. The
company wants to minimize the cost of construction of the tower provided that the
location of the tower meets its minimum criteria for service and also adheres to all
zoning regulations. There is a residential zone to the west of the property, so the
company would like to maximize the distance the tower is built from the residential
area so the residents do not complain about the eyesore. The company requires that
all of its cell phone towers must reach at least 1000 meters above sea level because of
interference issues. Also, power lines run along the southern border of the property and
state regulations require that a cell phone tower must be at least as far away from the
lines as the height of the tower. To build the tower the team has hired two companies to
complete the task. The construction company charges 200 dollars per meter of the road
that they must build the tower, and it has a quadratic cost function for the height of the
tower. The taller the tower is, the more design needs to be done, so the cost of each
vertical meter of tower height is 10 dollars per meter squared. The only road in the area
runs along the western border of the property separating the property from the
residential area. The electrical company will hook up power to the tower and they will
charge 75 dollars per meter of line that they must run from the main power lines. As
mentioned above, the power lines run along the southern border of the property. Finally,
surveyors have discovered that the property is at 0 meters above sea level at the
intersection of the power lines and the road. They also found that the property rises in
elevation at a constant rate of 3 meters per meter to the east and 2 meters per meter
north.

2 Problem Objectives

This is a multi-objective optimization problem, with the two objectives bolded above in
the problem statement. We will solve the problem using the Kuhn-Tucker Conditions,
and develop a set of Pareto Optimal solutions.

3 Model Development

The objective function for this problem is to minimize the cost of building the tower, while
also maximizing the distance from the residential area.
There are three factors that affect the cost of the tower: the distance from the road on
the western border, the distance from the power lines on the southern border and the
height of the tower. We will designate these three factors as x, y and z. We can write the
objective functions as follows:
minimize : 200x + 75y + 10z
2

maximize : x

2
There are also several constraints that go into the decision. First, the tower must reach
at least 1000 meters above sea level. We can formulate this constraint as follows :

3x + 2y + z 1000

The other constraint says that the cell phone tower must be no closer to power lines than
its height. This can be written as:

y z

Finally, x, y, z 0.

The formal problem setup is as follows:
( )
0 , 0 , 0
0 ) , , ( g
0 2 3 1000 ) , , ( g
s.t.
, ,
10 75 200 ) , , (
min
2
1
2
2
1
, ,
> > >
s =
s =
)
`

=
+ + =
z y x
y z z y x
z y x z y x
x z y x f
z y x z y x f
z y x



Since there are 2 objectives, we will use the - constraint approach to convert one of the
objectives into a constraint:

0 , 0 , 0
0 ) , , ( g
0 2 3 1000 ) , , ( g
0
s.t.
10 75 200 ) , , (
min
2
1
2
1
, ,
> > >
s =
s =
s
)
`

+ + =
z y x
y z z y x
z y x z y x
x
z y x z y x f
z y x
c



4 Solving the Problem

In order to solve this problem, we will use the Lagrangian of the above problem, along
with the Kuhn-Tucker Conditions. Here is the Lagrangian:

( ) ( ) ( ) y z x y x x z y x L + + + + + =
3 2 1
2
2 3 1000 10 75 200 ) , ( c x
And the Kuhn-Tucker Conditions:
I.
3






0 20
0 2 75
0 3 200
3 2
3 2
2 1
> + =
c
c
> =
c
c
> =
c
c



z
z
L
y
L
x
L
0 ) , ( > V x
x
L

0 ) , ( = V x x
x
L

0 > x
0 , 0 , 0 > > > z y x
( )
( )
( ) 0 20
0 2 75
0 3 200
3 2
3 2
2 1
= + =
c
c
= =
c
c
= =
c
c



z z
z
L
z
y
y
L
y
x
x
L
x

II.

0 ) , ( s V

x L
0 ) , ( = V

x L
0 >
0
0 2 3 1000
0
3
2
1
s =
c
c
s =
c
c
s =
c
c
y z
L
z y x
L
x
L

0 , 0 , 0
3 2 1
> > >
( )
( )
( ) 0
0 2 3 1000
0
3
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
1
= =
c
c
= =
c
c
= =
c
c
y z
L
z y x
L
x
L

4
We will assume that z and y must be greater than 0 (since the tower must have some
vertical height, and if it has vertical height, y must be greater than or equal to that
height). Also,
1
must be greater than 0, since our objective constraint must be binding.
Using these assumptions, there is only one case with a feasible solution; this occurs
when the second constraint is binding (
2
> 0), and the third is not binding (
3
= 0).

Three Pareto optimal solutions are:
x = 10, y = 484.06, z = 1.875, Cost = $37,465, Distance from residential Area = 10m
x = 200, y = 199.06, z = 1.875, Cost = $54,965, Distance from residential Area = 200m
x = 330, y = 4.06, z = 1.875, Cost = $66,340, Distance from residential Area = 330m

The value of
1
is 87.5. This is the tradeoff between distance from residential area and
construction cost. For each meter further from the residential area the company
constructs the tower, the cost will increase by $87.50.

Three solutions that are not optimal are:
x = 50, y = 450, z = 10, Cost = $44,750, Distance from residential area = 50m
x = 100, y = 400, z = 10, Cost = $51,000, Distance from residential area = 100m
x = 200, y = 400, z = 10, Cost = $71,000, Distance from residential area = 200m

These solutions are not optimal because if you hold the distance from residential area
constant, you could build a cheaper tower that still meets all the constraints. Vice versa,
if you hold the cost constant, you could move the tower further from the residential area
and still pay the same price.

The blue line below represents all Pareto Optimal solutions. The area above the line is
infeasible; the area below the line is dominated by a better solution.
Distance from Residential Area vs. Construction Cost
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
$30,000 $35,000 $40,000 $45,000 $50,000 $55,000 $60,000 $65,000 $70,000
Construction Cost ($)
D
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

f
r
o
m

R
e
s
i
d
e
n
t
i
a
l

A
r
e
a

(
m
)