Stability conditions for a pipeline polling scheme in satellite communications

Abstract

This paper considers the unknown stability conditions of a pipeline polling scheme proposed for satellite communications. This scheme is modelled as a cyclic-service system with limited service and reservation. The walk times and the maximum number of services to be performed during each polling are dependent on the queue lengths of the stations. The main result is the derivation of the necessary and sufficient stability conditions of the system. Our approach is to map the multi-dimensional stability problem into many 1-dimensional stability problems through the concept of the least stable queue. The least stable queue is one that will become unstable first when the system load increases in some parameter region. The stability of the least stable queue thus implies stability of the system. The stability region for the whole system is then the union of the queue stability regions of all the least stable queues that are obtained through dominant systems and Loynes' theorem. We also propose a computable sufficient condition that is tighter than the existing result and present some numerical results. © 1993 J.C. Baltzer AG, Science Publishers.