Optimal coupling patterns in interconnected communication networks

Traffic dynamics on single or isolated complex networks has been extensively studied in the past decade. Recently, several coupled network models have been developed to describe the interactions between real-world networked systems. In a system of interconnected networks, the coupling links refer to the physical links between networks and provide paths for traffic transmission. Thus, the coupling pattern, i.e., the way coupling links are added, has a profound influence on the overall traffic performance. In this paper, we employ a simulated annealing (SA) algorithm to find a near-optimal configuration of the coupling links, which effectively improves the overall traffic capacity compared with random, assortative and disassortative couplings. Furthermore, we investigate the optimal configuration of coupling links given by the SA algorithm and develop a faster method to select the coupling links.