Temporal characteristics of the queueing process of buffer-aided wireless communications

Due to the fading property of wireless channels, the instant transmission capability of a fading channel, i.e., the instantaneous channel capacity, will change randomly along time. Usually, a finite size buffer is needed at the transmitter to match instant channel capacity with the source data stream. This paper is focused on the queuing process in the buffer. The temporal characteristics of the queueing process in the buffer are investigated, for a buffer-aided communication over block Rayleigh fading channel, in the low signal-to-noise ratio regime. Particularly, the average absorbing time for the buffer to transfer from empty state to overflow sate and from overflow state to empty state, as well as the stable working time in which neither buffer empty nor buffer overflow happens are derived. Theoretical and numerical results show that increasing the buffer size and traffic load properly will improve the efficiency of the transmission.