Fresh-CSMA: A distributed protocol for minimizing age of information

We consider the design of distributed scheduling algorithms that minimize age of information (AoI) in single-hop wireless networks. The centralized max-weight policy is known to be nearly optimal in this setting; hence, our goal is to design a distributed carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) scheme that can mimic its performance. To that end, we propose a distributed protocol called Fresh-CSMA and show that in an idealized setting, Fresh-CSMA can match the scheduling decisions of the max-weight policy with high probability in each frame, and also match the theoretical performance guarantees of the max-weight policy over the entire time horizon. We then consider a more realistic setting and study the impact of protocol parameters on the probability of collisions and the overhead caused by the distributed nature of the protocol. We also consider the monitoring of Markov sources and extend our approach to CSMA protocols that incorporate age of incorrect information (AoII) instead of AoI. Finally, we provide simulations that support our theoretical results and show that the performance gap between the ideal and realistic versions of Fresh-CSMA is small.