SLDRT: A measurement technique for available bandwidth on multi-hop path with bursty cross traffic

End-to-end available bandwidth is of great importance as a metric that characterizes the network’s dynamic transmitting capability. Most estimation methodologies infer available bandwidth from the relationship between the input inter-packet gaps and those of the output. This paper analyzes the challenges brought by extending the measurement environment to the multi-hop path with bursty cross-traffic. Based on the analysis, a novel probing technique, self-loading decreasing rate train (SLDRT), is proposed. SLDRT measures the available bandwidth by using a single decreasing rate packet train. The special train can efficiently avoid bias caused by multiple sampling. Performance analysis via NS-2 simulations and PlanetLab experiments verify the effectiveness of our method under multi-hop path with the bursty cross traffic environment, and also show that SLDRT estimates available bandwidth more quickly, accurately, and with less measurement overhead than other existing techniques such as pathload and pathChirp.