Dynamic control and optimization of buffer size in wireless networks

Third generation (3G) wireless networks enable the deployment of real time applications that put extra pressure on network scarce resources (bandwidth and buffers) thus generating a need for effective resource allocation and management. This work studies the problem of dynamic control and optimization of buffer thresholds in wireless networks such as UMTS/3G. Based of a stochastic fluid model (SFM), this paper derives infinitesimal perturbation analysis (IPA) estimators of the sensitivity of some performance measure of interest with respect to the control parameter. Subsequently these estimators are evaluated based on data observed from the sample path of the "real" system and are used to dynamically control the threshold allowing the network to work continuously at an optimal or near optimal point.