The power-series algorithm applied to cyclic polling systems

The computation scheme of the power-series algorithm for the evaluation of the joint queue length distributions for a broad class of multi-queue systems is extended in order to become applicable to polling systems with non-negligible switching times. Because the server continues to move along the queues when no jobs are present, these systems do not possess a unique empty state. This makes that the algorithm is no longer purely recursive, but requires the solution of some sets of linear equations. Performance of the algorithm and properties of the model are discussed on the basis of some examples.