A self-tuning multicast flow control scheme based on autonomic technology

With the increase of multicast data applications, research interests have focused on the design of congestion control schemes for multicast communications. This paper describes a novel control-theoretic multicast congestion control scheme, which is based on the distributed self-tuning proportional plus integrative (SPI) controller. The control parameters can be designed to ensure the stability of the control loop in terms of source rate. The distributed explicit rate SPI overcomes the vulnerability that suffers from the heterogeneous multicast receivers. It is suggested that the congestion controller is located at the multipoint-to-multipoint multicast source to regulate the transmission rate. We further analyze the theoretical aspects of the proposed algorithm, and show how the control mechanism can be used to design a controller to support multicast transmissions. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed scheme in terms of system stability and fast response of the buffer occupancy, as well as controlled sending rates, low packet loss, and high scalability.