Weighted improper colouring

In this paper, we study a colouring problem motivated by a practical frequency assignment problem and, up to our best knowledge, new. In wireless networks, a node interferes with other nodes, the level of interference depending on numerous parameters: distance between the nodes, geographical topography, obstacles, etc. We model this with a weighted graph (G,w)(G,w) where the weight function w on the edges of G represents the noise (interference) between the two end-vertices. The total interference in a node is then the sum of all the noises of the nodes emitting on the same frequency. A weighted t-improper k  -colouring of (G,w)(G,w) is a k-colouring of the nodes of G (assignment of k frequencies) such that the interference at each node does not exceed the threshold t. We consider here the Weighted Improper Colouring problem which consists in determining the weighted t-improper chromatic number defined as the minimum integer k   such that (G,w)(G,w) admits a weighted t-improper k-colouring. We also consider the dual problem, denoted the Threshold Improper Colouring problem, where, given a number k of colours, we want to determine the minimum real t   such that (G,w)(G,w) admits a weighted t-improper k-colouring. We first present general upper bounds for both problems; in particular we show a generalisation of Lovászʼs Theorem for the weighted t-improper chromatic number. Motivated by the original application, we then study a special interference model on various grids (square, triangular, hexagonal) where a node produces a noise of intensity 1 for its neighbours and a noise of intensity 1/2 for the nodes at distance two. We derive the weighted t-improper chromatic number for all values of t.