Flow assignment and packet scheduling for multipath routing

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a framework to study how to route packets efficiently in multipath communication networks. Two traffic congestion control techniques, namely, flow assignment and packet scheduling, have been investigated. The flow assignment mechanism defines an optimal splitting of data traffic on multiple disjoint paths. The resequencing delay and the usage of the resequencing buffer can be reduced significantly by properly scheduling the sending order of all packets, say, according to their expected arrival times at the destination. To illustrate our model, and without loss of generality, Gaussian distributed end-toend path delays are used. Our analytical results show that the techniques are very effective in reducing the average end-to-end path delay, the average packet resequencing delay, and the average resequencing buffer occupancy for various path configurations. These promising results can form a basis for designing future adaptive multipath protocols.