Information utility in mission-oriented networks

In recent years, utility-oriented resource allocation for wired and wireless networks has been extensively studied. A key goal of utility based analysis is to provide evaluation criteria for efficient network operation based on subjective user assessments such as usefulness and value of data. Yet the vast majority of the prior work has focused on topics like mathematical functions (concave or otherwise) of network metrics such as bandwidth, delay, packet loss, etc., or information entropy, or user-perceived quality (e.g., MOS) for interpreting utility. In this work1, we propose an alternative mission-oriented definition and metric for utility that is based on the accuracy and speed at which tasks are completed, which we believe is closer to the intent of utility-based analysis. Like previous work, our definition supports the design and engineering of networks by mapping utility metrics to the typical network design metrics (bandwidth, delay, loss, etc). Unlike previous work, it also permits simple solutions to important questions such as the joint utility or usefulness of different data streams, the impact on the utility of one data stream by another, and cross-sensory utility (e.g., the impact of a side audio channel on an image processing task, or a side video channel on an audio processing task). We present a novel experimental approach to the design of such experiments, and provide measurement results. The results quantify the effects of information encoding and the impairments incurred during transmission through imperfect networks on the information's usefulness to end-users in terms of being able to complete tasks correctly and on time.