# Minimizing the Age of Information in Wireless Networks with Stochastic Arrivals

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes how to optimize the freshness of information in wireless networks with stochastic packet arrivals by deriving bounds and proposing policies, demonstrating near-optimal performance through analysis and simulations.

## Contribution

It introduces a lower bound on AoI and develops optimal policies for different queueing disciplines, advancing understanding of AoI management in stochastic wireless networks.

## Key findings

- Max-Weight policy performs close to the lower bound.
- Analytical and simulation results validate the policies.
- Queueing discipline impacts AoI performance significantly.

## Abstract

We consider a wireless network with a base station serving multiple traffic streams to different destinations. Packets from each stream arrive to the base station according to a stochastic process and are enqueued in a separate (per stream) queue. The queueing discipline controls which packet within each queue is available for transmission. The base station decides, at every time t, which stream to serve to the corresponding destination. The goal of scheduling decisions is to keep the information at the destinations fresh. Information freshness is captured by the Age of Information (AoI) metric. In this paper, we derive a lower bound on the AoI performance achievable by any given network operating under any queueing discipline. Then, we consider three common queueing disciplines and develop both an Optimal Stationary Randomized policy and a Max-Weight policy under each discipline. Our approach allows us to evaluate the combined impact of the stochastic arrivals, queueing discipline and scheduling policy on AoI. We evaluate the AoI performance both analytically and using simulations. Numerical results show that the performance of the Max-Weight policy is close to the analytical lower bound.