Optimal dynamic transport selection for wireless portable devices

Abstract

AbstractRecent technological advances in mobile computing and wireless communication have made portable devices, such as PDA, laptops, and wireless modems to be very compact and affordable. On the other hand, wireless networks have gained such wide popularity that new network infrastructure is continually introduced. It is thus likely that many of the future portable devices will be equipped with multiple wireless modems such as Bluetooth and 802.11 WLAN, in order to increase device inter‐operability. The availability of multiple modems can leverage the performance of the communication traffic generated by the applications, for example Internet access. We envision a tool for managing the device connection through these modems. At the core of this tool is an optimization engine that splits packet traffic across a subset of the available transports so that user's performance metrics are maximized. This paper describes a mathematical model for such an optimization problem considering its applicability to small portable devices. Relevant quality of service (QoS) parameters such as bandwidth, average delay, and energy consumption are covered in the model. The mathematical formulation is validated using a simulated environment. The experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of our model and captured the inter‐relationship among the quality parameters. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.