Redundant Packet Scheduling by Uncorrelated Paths in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Abstract

Heterogeneous wireless networks operate under un-certainties as traffic load variation and failures. Redundant packet scheduling algorithms seek to timely cope with these uncertainties to meet the latency and throughput requirements for delay-sensitive applications, such as online gaming, voice and video streaming. The Multipath Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP) can rely on a redundant scheduler to fulfill this demand, replicating data packets on multiple paths to mitigate negative effects of heterogeneity, such as fluctuations in delay, loss rate, and bandwidth. However, shared bottlenecks among paths can compromise the benefits of the redundant scheduler and restrain the MPTCP performance. Thus, this paper introduces a new scheduler, called RED (REdundant Diversity scheduling), to prioritize packet replication by uncorrelated paths. RED selects paths and replicates packets based on the Spearman's correlation coefficient. Results show that RED achieves low delay and enhances the usage of low correlated paths, improving transmission performance.