Nearly-optimal scheduling of users with Markovian time-varying transmission rates

Cecchi, Fabio and Jacko, Peter (2016) Nearly-optimal scheduling of users with Markovian time-varying transmission rates. Performance Evaluation, 99-100. pp. 16-36. ISSN 0166-5316

[thumbnail of wireless_Markovian3_6_elsarticle-harv_Peter]
Preview
PDF (wireless_Markovian3_6_elsarticle-harv_Peter)
wireless_Markovian3_6_elsarticle_harv_Peter.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs.

Download (3MB)

Abstract

We address the problem of developing a well-performing and implementable scheduler of users with wireless connections to the central controller, which arise in areas such as mobile data networks, heterogeneous networks, or vehicular communications systems. The main feature of such systems is that the connection quality of each user is time-varying, resulting in time-varying transmission rate corresponding to available channel states. We assume that this evolution is Markovian, relaxing the common but unrealistic assumption of stationary channels. We first focus on the three-state channel and study the optimal policy, showing that threshold policies (of giving higher priority to users with higher transmission rate) are not necessarily optimal. For the general channel we design a scheduler which generalizes the recently proposed Potential Improvement (PI) scheduler, and propose its two practical approximations, whose performance is analyzed and compared to existing alternative schedulers in a variety of simulation scenarios. We suggest and give evidence that the variant of PI which only relies on the steady-state distribution of the channel, performs extremely well, and therefore should be used for practical implementation.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Performance Evaluation
Additional Information:
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Performance Evaluation. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Performance Evaluation, 99-100, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.peva.2016.02.002
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1700/1708
Subjects:
?? wireless networksopportunistic schedulingnon-stationaryperformance evaluationstabilitymarkov decision processesstochastic schedulinghardware and architecturemodelling and simulationsoftwarecomputer networks and communications ??
ID Code:
78680
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
03 May 2016 08:48
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
31 Dec 2023 00:40