Stochastic utility-based flow control algorithm for services with time-varying rate requirements

In this paper, we study a utility based flow control problem for a communication network. In most previous works on utility based flow control, the utility function of each user, which represents its satisfaction to the allocated data rate, is assumed to be fixed. This implies that the degree of the rate requirement of each user is assumed to be fixed over the entire duration of its session. However, in communication networks, many services are variable rate services, i.e., the degree of their rate requirement varies over time, which cannot be modeled with traditional static utility functions. To resolve this issue and appropriately model services with variable rate requirements, we propose a stochastic utility function that varies stochastically according to the variation of the degree of the rate requirement of a service. We formulate a flow control problem as a stochastic optimization problem with stochastic utility functions that aims at maximizing the average network utility while satisfying the constraint on link capacity and QoS requirement. By solving the stochastic optimization problem, we develop a distributed flow control algorithm that converges to the optimal rate allocation.