PAQM: Pro-active Queue Management for Internet Congestion Control

Abstract

We argue that active queue management (AQM) based congestion control should be adaptive to dynamically changing traffic. We outline requirements for this adaptivity in what we call proactive queue management. We propose the Pro-Active Queue Management (PAQM) scheme, which can provide proactive congestion avoidance and control using an adaptive congestion indicator and control function for a wide range of traffic environments. PAQM stabilizes the queue length around a desired level while giving smooth and low packet loss rates independent of the traffic load. We introduce and analyze a feedback control model of TCP/AQM dynamics, and use this to build a discretized control implementation of the PAQM method. A simulation study with a wide range of realistic traffic conditions suggests that PAQM outperforms other AQM algorithms such as Random Early Detection (RED) (Floyd, 1993), Random Early Marking (REM) (Low, 1999) and Proportional-Integral (PI) controller (Hollot, 2001b).KeywordsQueue LengthTransmission Control ProtocolTraffic LoadCongestion ControlInternet Engineer Task ForceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.