A Decision-Theoretic Approach to Resource Allocation in Wireless Multimedia Networks

The allocation of scarce spectral resources to support as many user applications as possible while maintaining reasonable quality of service is a fundamental problem in wireless communication. We argue that the problem is best formulated in terms of decision theory. We propose a scheme that takes decision-theoretic concerns (like preferences) into account and discuss the difficulties and subtleties involved in applying standard techniques from the theory of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) in constructing an algorithm that is decision-theoretically optimal. As an example of the proposed framework, we construct such an algorithm under some simplifying assumptions. Additionally, we present analysis and simulation results that show that our algorithm meets its design goals. Finally, we investigate how far from optimal one well-known heuristic is. The main contribution of our results is in providing insight and guidance for the design of near-optimal admission-control policies.Comment: To appear, Dial M for Mobility, 200

Cross-layer design of multi-hop wireless networks

MULTI -hop wireless networks are usually defined as a collection of nodes equipped with radio transmitters, which not only have the capability to communicate each other in a multi-hop fashion, but also to route each others’ data packets. The distributed nature of such networks makes them suitable for a variety of applications where there are no assumed reliable central entities, or controllers, and may significantly improve the scalability issues of conventional single-hop wireless networks. This Ph.D. dissertation mainly investigates two aspects of the research issues related to the efficient multi-hop wireless networks design, namely: (a) network protocols and (b) network management, both in cross-layer design paradigms to ensure the notion of service quality, such as quality of service (QoS) in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) for backhaul applications and quality of information (QoI) in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for sensing tasks. Throughout the presentation of this Ph.D. dissertation, different network settings are used as illustrative examples, however the proposed algorithms, methodologies, protocols, and models are not restricted in the considered networks, but rather have wide applicability. First, this dissertation proposes a cross-layer design framework integrating a distributed proportional-fair scheduler and a QoS routing algorithm, while using WMNs as an illustrative example. The proposed approach has significant performance gain compared with other network protocols. Second, this dissertation proposes a generic admission control methodology for any packet network, wired and wireless, by modeling the network as a black box, and using a generic mathematical 0. Abstract 3 function and Taylor expansion to capture the admission impact. Third, this dissertation further enhances the previous designs by proposing a negotiation process, to bridge the applications’ service quality demands and the resource management, while using WSNs as an illustrative example. This approach allows the negotiation among different service classes and WSN resource allocations to reach the optimal operational status. Finally, the guarantees of the service quality are extended to the environment of multiple, disconnected, mobile subnetworks, where the question of how to maintain communications using dynamically controlled, unmanned data ferries is investigated

Delay Sensitive Communications over Cognitive Radio Networks

Supporting the quality of service of unlicensed users in cognitive radio networks is very challenging, mainly due to dynamic resource availability because of the licensed users' activities. In this paper, we study the optimal admission control and channel allocation decisions in cognitive overlay networks in order to support delay sensitive communications of unlicensed users. We formulate it as a Markov decision process problem, and solve it by transforming the original formulation into a stochastic shortest path problem. We then propose a simple heuristic control policy, which includes a threshold-based admission control scheme and and a largest-delay-first channel allocation scheme, and prove the optimality of the largest-delay-first channel allocation scheme. We further propose an improved policy using the rollout algorithm. By comparing the performance of both proposed policies with the upper-bound of the maximum revenue, we show that our policies achieve close-to-optimal performance with low complexities.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

A novel admission control scheme for network slicing based on squatting and kicking strategies

New services and applications impose differentquality of service (QoS) requirements on network slicing. Tomeet differentiated service requirements, current Internet servicemodel has to support emerging real-time applications from 5Gnetworks. The admission control mechanisms are expected tobe one of the key components of the future integrated serviceInternet model, for providing multi-level service guarantees withthe different classes (slices) of services. Therefore, this paperintroduces a new flexible admission control mechanism, basedon squatting and kicking techniques (SKM), which can beemployed under network slicing scenario. From the results, SKMprovides 100% total resource utilization in bandwidth contextand 100% acceptance ratio for highest priority class underdifferent input traffic volumes, which cannot be achieved byother existing schemes such as AllocTC-Sharing model due topriority constraints.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version