Dynamic Routing in Polling Systems

Polling systems have important applications to Telecommunication Systems, Data Link Protocols, Local Area Computer Networks, Flexible Manufacturing Systems, etc. As such they have been the subject of extensive research in recent years, most notably in the context of cyclic queues. The focus of much of this research has been on evaluating performance measures of fixed-template routing schemes with different service disciplines, namely the Exhaustive, Gated and Limited Service policies. Analyses have concentrated on obtaining equilibrium mean-value or approximate results for various policies, and only recently have pseudo-conservation laws been derived. In this paper, optimal routing policies are derived that lead to adaptive dynamic control of the server's polling schemes for both the Exhaustive and Gated service disciplines with or without switching times between channels. These dynamic routing rules utilize current system information at suitably defined decision epochs, they are surprisingly simple, and of a form amenable to direct engineering implementa tion.