Opportunism, backpressure, and stochastic optimization with the wireless broadcast advantage

This paper provides a tutorial treatment of recent stochastic network optimization techniques, including Lyapunov network optimization, backpressure, and max-weight decision making. A new technique of place holder bits that improves delay for networking problems with general costs is also presented. An example application is given for the problem of energy-aware scheduling and routing in a wireless mobile network with channel errors and multi-receiver diversity. The diversity backpressure routing algorithm (DIVBAR, Neely and Urgaonkar 2006, 2008) is illustrated and simulated in comparison to the extremely opportunistic routing strategy (ExOR, Biswas and Morris 2005).