Fuzzy control of multi‐rate traffic in multimedia cell‐based networks

In this paper, an intelligent scheme for controlling the QoS in multimedia, multi‐rate networks is presented. The scheme implements a dynamic control mechanism, based on buffers with vaguely defined thresholds represented with fuzzy sets. This approach guarantees the QoS of real‐time traffic and delivers non‐realtime traffic at acceptable performance levels. The fuzzy mechanism, based on the principles of fuzzy control, dynamically responds to the alternating traffic patterns at the access node using a set of fuzzy control rules. The fuzzy control rules are carefully formulated to reduce the starvation of non‐realtime traffic which is usually assigned a low priority. We also show in this paper how the proposed schemes offer an improved performance over other access control mechanisms such as moving boundaries and other static priority strategies.