Efficient sequencing techniques for variable-length messages in WDMnetworks

Message sequencing and channel assignment are two important issues that need to be addressed when scheduling variable-length messages in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network. Channel assignment addresses the problem of choosing an appropriate data channel via which a message is transmitted to a node. This problem has been addressed extensively in the literature. On the other hand, message sequencing which addresses the order in which messages are sent, has rarely been addressed. In this paper, we propose a set of scheduling techniques for single-hop WDM passive star networks, which address both the sequencing aspect and the assignment aspect of the problem. In particular, we develop two priority schemes for sequencing messages in a WDM network in order to increase the overall performance of the network. We evaluate the proposed algorithms, using analytical modeling and extensive discrete event simulations, by comparing their performance with state-of-the-art scheduling algorithms that only address the assignment problem. We find that significant improvement in performance can be achieved using our scheduling algorithms where message sequencing and channel assignment are simultaneously taken into consideration. This suggests that, when scheduling messages in WDM networks, one has to consider message sequencing, as well as channel assignment. As a result, we anticipate that this research will open new directions into the problem of on-line scheduling in WDM networks     

A cost-based scheduling algorithm for differentiated service on WDM optical networks

One of the important issues in the design of future generation of high-speed networks is to provide differentiated services to different types of traffic with various time constraints. We propose an adaptive scheme to manage message transmission in single-hop passive-star coupler based wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. This study suggests that when scheduling message transmission in WDM networks a differentiated service should be considered in order to meet the time constraint to transmission of real-time messages while non real-time messages are being served so that the overall performance of the network could be improved.     

Providing deterministic quality-of-service guarantees on WDM optical networks

A major challenge in the design of future generation high-speed networks is the provision of guaranteed quality-of-service (QoS) for a wide variety of multimedia applications. In this paper we investigate the problem of providing QoS guarantees to real-time variable length messages (e.g., IP packets) in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. In particular, we propose a systematic mechanism comprised of admission control, traffic regulation, and message scheduling that provide guaranteed performance service for real-time application streams made up of variable-length messages. We formulate an analytical model based on the theory of max-plus algebra to evaluate the deterministic bounded message delay in a WDM network environment using our proposed QoS guarantee mechanism to determine the "schedulability conditions" of multimedia application streams, We also conduct a series of discrete-event and trace-driven simulations to verify the accuracy of the analytical model. The simulation results demonstrate that the analytic delay bound we obtained for our WDM optical network is valid and accurate.     

Random algorithms for scheduling multicast traffic in WDMbroadcast-and-select networks

We develop and analyze simple algorithms for scheduling multicast traffic in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) broadcast-and-select networks with N nodes, W wavelengths, and a single receiver per node that can be tuned to any of the W wavelengths. Each message is addressed to κ randomly chosen nodes. Since optimal message scheduling in a WDM network is known to be very difficult, we study two simple scheduling schemes: in the first, a message is continuously retransmitted until it is received by all of its intended recipients; and in the second, a random delay is introduced between retransmissions of the same message. We develop a throughput analysis for both schemes using methods from discrete-time queueing systems and show that the algorithm with random delays between retransmissions results in higher throughput. We also consider a number of receiver algorithms for selecting among multiple simultaneous transmissions and show, through simulation, that an algorithm where the receiver selects the message with the least number of intended recipients performs better than a random selection algorithm. Finally, we show that channel utilization can be significantly increased with multiple receivers/node     

Scheduling variable-length messages in a single-hop multichannellocal lightwave network

The design of a medium access control scheme for a single-hop, wavelength-division-multiplexing-(WDM) multichannel local lightwave network poses two major difficulties: relatively large transmitter/receiver tuning overhead and large ratio of propagation delay to packet transmission time. Most schemes proposed so far have ignored the tuning overhead, and they can only schedule fixed-length packet transmissions. To overcome these two difficulties, the authors propose several scheduling algorithms which can reduce the negative impact of tuning overhead and schedule variable-length messages. A separate channel (control channel) is employed for transmission of control packets, and a distributed scheduling algorithm is invoked at each node every time it receives a control packet. By allowing the length of messages to be variable, a long message can be scheduled with a single control packet transmission, instead of fragmenting it into many fixed-length packets, thereby significantly reducing the overhead of control packet transmissions and improving the overall system performance. Three novel scheduling algorithms are proposed, varying in the amount of global information and processing time they need. Two approximate analytical models are formulated to study the effect of tuning time and the effect of having a limited number of data channels. Extensive simulations are conducted. Average message delays are compared for all of the algorithms     

Performance of Single-Hop WDM LANs Supporting Real-Time Services

Optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) local area networks are capable of fulfilling the enormous bandwidth demands of present and future applications. Up to now, the WDM LAN world is primarily dominated by the passive-star coupler (PSC) based architectures, for which many medium access control (MAC) protocols have been proposed. However, an arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer (AWGM)-based single-hop WDM network seems to be a very promising alternative. One of the most critical issues in designing next generation photonic LANs is the support of real-time services for applications with different time constraints. In this paper, different basic access protocols for the PSC as well as AWGM-based single-hop WDM LANs are considered and their performance in supporting real-time traffic is analyzed by means of extensive computer simulations. For evaluation of real-time performance, packet drop rates and deadline missing rates are taken as performance measures. Furthermore, new real-time message scheduling schemes are proposed which improve the performance of protocols accommodating mixed traffic. They can be differentiated between message scheduling at the source nodes transmit queues and scheduling based upon control information from a control channel. It is shown that both types of priority scheduling significantly improve the overall real-time performance.     

Energy-aware scheduling with probabilistic deadline constraints in wireless networks

In a shared-medium wireless network, an effective technique that allows for a tradeoff of message transmission time for energy savings is to transmit messages over multiple smaller hops as opposed to using the long direct source-destination hop. In this context, we address the problem of scheduling messages with probabilistic deadline constraints. Unlike most other works in this area, we consider the practical aspects of the erroneous channel condition and the receiver energy consumption while solving the scheduling problem. Our solution is three fold – first we prove that the problem is NP-hard. We then present an Integer Linear Program (ILP) formulation for the scheduling problem. Finally, we present efficient heuristic scheduling algorithms which minimize the energy consumption while providing the required guarantees. Our simulation studies show that the proposed heuristic algorithms achieve energy savings comparable to that obtained using the linear programming methodology under practical channel conditions.     

保证航电波分复用网络实时性的虚拓扑设计

针对航空电子波分复用网络消息的实时性要求,对航空电子网络的结构进行了研究,分析了在该网络中造成消息延迟的主要因素为转发延迟。进而对航空电子网络建模,根据WDM网络的资源特性进行拓扑的约束,提出了基于综合考虑虚拓扑跳数以及消息的带宽保证为目标的线性规划算法,在此基础上给出了大型网络的一个启发式算法,采用该线性规划算法对NSFNet网络拓扑进行了仿真验证。仿真结果表明,综合考虑虚拓扑跳数和消息带宽能减少消息的延迟,保证了网络实时性。     

Minimizing Broadcast Latency and Redundancy in Ad Hoc Networks

Network wide broadcasting is a fundamental operation in ad hoc networks. In broadcasting, a source node sends a message to all the other nodes in the network. In this paper, we consider the problem of collision-free broadcasting in ad hoc networks. Our objective is to minimize the latency and the number of transmissions in the broadcast. We show that minimum latency broadcasting is NP-complete for ad hoc networks. We also present a simple distributed collision-free broadcasting algorithm for broadcasting a message. For networks with bounded node transmission ranges, our algorithm simultaneously guarantees that the latency and the number of transmissions are within $O(1)$ times their respective optimal values. Our algorithm and analysis extend to the case when multiple messages are broadcast from multiple sources. Experimental studies indicate that our algorithms perform much better in practice than the analytical guarantees provided for the worst case.      

Dynamic scheduling protocol for variable-sized messages in aWDM-based local network

In a single-hop star network based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), a protocol is needed for the transmitter and receiver to coordinate message transmission. This paper proposes a dynamic scheduling protocol which can efficiently support variable-sized messages, where a control channel is used to coordinate transmissions on data channels. The protocol does not require any global information. Therefore, it can operate independently of the change of the number of nodes, and any new node can join the network at any time without requiring network initialization. Moreover, with the protocol, one can avoid data channel and destination conflicts. The protocol is analyzed with a finite population model and the throughput-delay characteristics are investigated as performance measures     

Scheduling of real-time messages in optical broadcast-and-selectnetworks

We consider broadcast-and-select networks based on optical passive stars. In these single-hop networks, communicating pairs can exchange messages directly, without the need to store information at intermediate nodes for later forwarding. Messages are transmitted in a packetized way, and each message has an associated deadline. In order to guarantee the message reception timeliness, we ask that all the messages are received within their corresponding deadline. We show that this scheduling problem is strong NP-complete, even in a very restricted case. Then, we turn our attention to fast approximating heuristics. We present four of them, assess their average performance by means of computer simulation, and give their worst-case performance bounds. Such bounds can be effectively used to test the success of the schedule before generating it     

Efficient scheduling of transmissions in optical broadcast networks

All-optical networks (AONs) with a broadcast-star based physical topology offer the possibility of transmission scheduling to resolve channel and receiver conflicts. This paper considers the problem of scheduling packet transmissions in a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical network with tunable transmitters and fixed-tuned receivers. The scheduling problem is complicated by tuning latency, a limited number of channels, and arbitrary traffic demands. We first analyze scheduling all-to-all packet transmissions and obtain a new lower bound for the schedule length. The lower bound is achieved by an algorithm proposed by Pieris and Sasaki (1994). We then extend the analysis to the case of arbitrary traffic demands and obtain lower bounds for the schedule length. Two constructions for scheduling algorithms are provided through list scheduling and multigraphs. The upper bounds so obtained not only provide performance guarantees with arbitrary demands, but also nearly meet the lower bound in simulations     

TDMA scheduling algorithms for wireless sensor networks

Algorithms for scheduling TDMA transmissions in multi-hop networks usually determine the smallest length conflict-free assignment of slots in which each link or node is activated at least once. This is based on the assumption that there are many independent point-to-point flows in the network. In sensor networks however often data are transferred from the sensor nodes to a few central data collectors. The scheduling problem is therefore to determine the smallest length conflict-free assignment of slots during which the packets generated at each node reach their destination. The conflicting node transmissions are determined based on an interference graph, which may be different from connectivity graph due to the broadcast nature of wireless transmissions. We show that this problem is NP-complete. We first propose two centralized heuristic algorithms: one based on direct scheduling of the nodes or node-based scheduling, which is adapted from classical multi-hop scheduling algorithms for general ad hoc networks, and the other based on scheduling the levels in the routing tree before scheduling the nodes or level-based scheduling, which is a novel scheduling algorithm for many-to-one communication in sensor networks. The performance of these algorithms depends on the distribution of the nodes across the levels. We then propose a distributed algorithm based on the distributed coloring of the nodes, that increases the delay by a factor of 10–70 over centralized algorithms for 1000 nodes. We also obtain upper bound for these schedules as a function of the total number of packets generated in the network.     

Lifetime Maximization Based on Coverage and Connectivity in Wireless Sensor Networks

We consider information retrieval in a wireless sensor network deployed to monitor a spatially correlated random field. We address optimal sensor scheduling and information routing under the performance measure of network lifetime. Both single-hop and multi-hop transmissions from sensors to an access point are considered. For both cases, we formulate the problems as integer programming based on the theories of coverage and connectivity in sensor networks. We derive upper bounds for the network lifetime that provide performance benchmarks for suboptimal solutions. Suboptimal sensor scheduling and data routing algorithms are proposed to approach the lifetime upper bounds with reduced complexity. In the proposed algorithms, we consider the impact of both the network geometry and the energy consumption in communications and relaying on the network lifetime. Simulation examples are used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithms as compared to the lifetime upper bounds.     

Performance Analysis of a Real-Time Control Network Test Bed in a Linux-Based System With Sporadic Message Arrivals

This paper describes the results from a real-time network test bed for a Linux-based control system with event-driven message traffic. Interest has grown in the use of Linux as a cost-effective alternative to expensive proprietary real-time operating systems. However, kernel tasks in Linux can cause random delays in message transmissions. Event-driven traffic can result in unpredictable message inter-arrival rates. Nondeterministic delays in message transmissions and sporadic message arrival times complicate the design of the network as they require the use of an estimation technique to analyze feasibility. Random temporal behavior can lead to network overloads, where it becomes unavoidable that some messages will be late. We discuss the design and feasibility analysis for the network and evaluate the network's performance in the presence of random kernel delay and sporadic message arrivals. Three message scheduling approaches are evaluated using different Linux configurations at different levels of network loading     

Novel algorithms for the network lifetime problem in wireless settings

One of the major concerns in wireless ad-hoc networks design is energy efficiency. Wireless devices are typically equipped with a limited energy supply sufficient only for a limited amount of time which is reversely proportional to the transmission power of the device. The network lifetime is defined as the time the first device runs out of its initial energy charge. In this paper we study the maximum network lifetime problem for broadcast and data gathering in wireless settings. We provide polynomial time approximation algorithms, with guaranteed performance bounds while considering omnidirectional and unidirectional transmissions. We also consider an extended variant of the maximum lifetime problem, which simultaneously satisfies additional constraints, such as bounded hop-diameter and degree of the routing tree, and minimizing the total energy used in a single transmission. Finally, we evaluate the performance of some of our algorithms through simulations.     

Opportunistic Fair Scheduling in Wireless Networks: An Approximate Dynamic Programming Approach

We consider the problem of temporal fair scheduling of queued data transmissions in wireless heterogeneous networks. We deal with both the throughput maximization problem and the delay minimization problem. Taking fairness constraints and the data arrival queues into consideration, we formulate the transmission scheduling problem as a Markov decision process (MDP) with fairness constraints. We study two categories of fairness constraints, namely temporal fairness and utilitarian fairness. We consider two criteria: infinite horizon expected total discounted reward and expected average reward. Applying the dynamic programming approach, we derive and prove explicit optimality equations for the above constrained MDPs, and give corresponding optimal fair scheduling policies based on those equations. A practical stochastic-approximation-type algorithm is applied to calculate the control parameters online in the policies. Furthermore, we develop a novel approximation method—temporal fair rollout—to achieve a tractable computation. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme achieves significant performance improvement for both throughput maximization and delay minimization problems compared with other existing schemes.     

Optimal scheduling of coordinated multipoint transmissions in cellular networks

In this paper, we study the optimal scheduling problem in coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission–based cellular networks. We consider joint transmission and coordinated scheduling together in CoMP transmission–based cellular networks and develop an optimization framework to compute the optimal max‐min throughput and the optimal scheduling of the transmissions to the users. The optimization problem is found to be a complex linear program with number of variables in for a cellular network of N users and K cells. We solve the optimization problem for several network instances using an optimization tool. The numerical results show that the optimal CoMP transmission provides a significant throughput gain over a traditional transmission. We find that in optimal scheduling the fraction time of coordinated scheduling is higher than that of joint transmission. To solve the optimization problem without any optimization tool, we propose a heuristic algorithm. The performance of the heuristic algorithm is evaluated and found to be provided throughput around 97% of the optimal throughput. Further, we extend the optimization framework to study joint scheduling and power allocation (JSPA) problem in CoMP transmission–based cellular networks. We numerically solve the JSPA problem for the network instances and demonstrate that the optimal power allocation at the base stations is not binary for a significant fraction of time of scheduling. However, the gain in max‐min throughput by the optimal JSPA technique over the optimal scheduling technique is not significant.     

A novel medium access control protocol for WDM-based LAN's andaccess networks using a master/slave scheduler

We describe an architecture and medium access control (MAC) protocol for wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks. Our system is based on a broadcast star architecture and uses an unslotted access protocol and a centralized scheduler to efficiently provide bandwidth-on-demand in WDM networks. To overcome the effects of propagation delays the scheduler measures the delays between the terminals and the hub and takes that delay into account when scheduling transmissions. Simple scheduling algorithms, based on a look-ahead capability, are used to overcome the effects of head-of-line blocking. An important application area for this system is in optical access networks, where this novel MAC protocol can be used to access wavelengths in a WDM passive optical network (PON)     

Clustering‐based scheduling: A new class of scheduling algorithms for single‐hop lightwave networks

In wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) star networks, the construction of the transmission schedule is a key issue, which essentially affects the network performance. Up to now, classic scheduling techniques consider the nodes' requests in a sequential service order. However, these approaches are static and do not take into account the individual traffic pattern of each node. Owing to this major drawback, they suffer from low performance, especially when operating under asymmetric traffic. In this paper, a new class of scheduling algorithms for WDM star networks, which is based on the use of clustering techniques, is introduced. According to the proposed Clustering‐Based Scheduling Algorithm (CBSA), the network's nodes are organized into clusters, based on the number of their requests per channel. Then, their transmission priority is defined beginning from the nodes belonging to clusters with higher demands and ending to the nodes of clusters with fewer requests. The main objective of the proposed scheme is to minimize the length of the schedule by rearranging the nodes' service order. Furthermore, the proposed CBSA scheme adopts a prediction mechanism to minimize the computational complexity of the scheduling algorithm. Extensive simulation results are presented, which clearly indicate that the proposed approach leads to a significantly higher throughput‐delay performance when compared with conventional scheduling algorithms. We believe that the proposed clustering‐based approach can be the base of a new generation of high‐performance scheduling algorithms for WDM star networks. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.