Fuzzy-Based Dynamic Distributed Queue Scheduling for Packet Switched Networks

Addressing the problem of queue scheduling for the packet-switched system is a vital aspect of congestion control. In this paper, the fuzzy logic based decision method is adopted for queue scheduling in order to enforce some level of control for traffic of different quality of service requirements using predetermined values. The fuzzy scheduler proposed in this paper takes into account the dynamic nature of the Internet traffic with respect to its time-varying packet arrival process that affects the network states and performance. Three queues are defined, viz low, medium and high priority queues. The choice of prioritizing packets influences how queues are served. The fuzzy scheduler not only utilizes queue priority in the queue scheduling scheme, but also considers packet drop susceptibility and queue limit. Through simulation it is shown that the fuzzy scheduler is more appropriate for the dynamic nature of Internet traffic in a packet-switched system as compared with some existing queue scheduling methods. Results show that the scheduling strategy of the proposed fuzzy scheduler reduces packet drop, provides good link utilization and minimizes queue delay as compared with the priority queuing (PQ), first-in-first-out (FIFO), and weighted fair queuing (WFQ).