Abstraction and control techniques for non-stationary scheduling problems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new framework for non-stationary scheduling by integrating control theory with classical heuristics, providing adaptable strategies to improve scheduling performance.

Contribution

It develops a comprehensive mathematical formulation of scheduling and proposes adaptive and switching control strategies to enhance traditional algorithms.

Findings

Adaptive control strategies outperform static heuristics.

Switching strategies improve scheduling robustness.

Mathematical formulation enables flexible manipulation of scheduling processes.

Abstract

The paper faces the problem of scheduling from a new perspective, trying to bridge the gap between classical heuristic approaches and system identification and control strategies. To this aim, a complete mathematical formulation of a general scheduling process is derived, beginning from very broad assumptions. This allows a greater freedom of manipulation and guarantee the resolution of the identification (and control) techniques. Both an adaptive and a switching strategies are presented in relation to the performances of a simple Round Robin algorithm.