Adaptive Control of Out-of-Sequence Packet Arrival for Optimization of Bandwidth Aggregation of Heterogeneous Communication Links

Multipath transmission of flows over heterogeneous communication channels faces numerous challenges in optimally utilizing combined communication resources for ubiquitous applications. One major issue is the out-of-sequence arrival of packets at receiver that commonly amplifies while distributing packets of a flow over multiple paths. These packets experience asymmetric path characteristics that results in diverse congestion states for ubiquitous traffic flows. This paper presents an adaptive mechanism for estimation of path suitability for a specific type of flow on the basis of end-to-end path delay statistics, packet drop and available bandwidth. The estimation process is used to develop path ranks for scheduling delay traffic on multiple paths with reduced probability of out-of-sequence arrival at the receiver. The proactive approach used in this scheme is computationally less expensive as compared to complex reordering of packets at the receiver. The results have shown robust performance of proposed mechanism in achieving acceptable quality-of-service levels during multipath transmission of flows with minimized out-of-sequence reception and reduced buffer occupancy.