Robust control and rate coordination for efficiency and fairness in ABR traffic with explicit rate marking

The problem of efficiency and fairness of ABR (available bit rate) traffic with explicit rate-marking is investigated from a control point of view. It is revealed that due to significant uncertainty on time delays in ABR traffic and strong interaction among switches, ABR traffic imposes a great challenge to control strategy development. Focusing on robustness of traffic control and asymptotic fairness, we propose a new control strategy that employs robust control to accommodate delay uncertainty and rate coordination for fairness. Conditions are presented under which robust stability and convergence are guaranteed