On the Global Optimality of Whittle’s Index Policy for Minimizing the Age of Information

This paper examines the average age minimization problem where only a fraction of network users can transmit simultaneously over unreliable channels. Finding optimal scheduling scheme, in this case, is known to be challenging. Accordingly, Whittle’s index policy was proposed literature as low-complexity heuristic problem. Although simple implement, characterizing policy’s performance recognized notoriously tricky task. In sequel, we provide new mathematical approach establish its optimality many-users regime for specific settings. Contrary previous works that use restrictive assumptions, which challenging verify, our novel based on intricate techniques and it free any strong assumptions. These findings showcase has analytically provable asymptotic AoI Finally, lay out numerical results corroborate theoretical demonstrate notable regime.