Age of Information Processes under Strongly Mixing Communication

Speaker : Adrian Redder
Paderborn University
Date: 05/04/2023
Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location: Room 4B01

Abstract

The decentralized nature of multi-agent systems requires continuous data
exchange to achieve global objectives. In such scenarios,
Age-of-Information (AoI) has become an important metric for the
freshness of communicated data. The study of AoI consequently has to
take into account the dependencies that communication systems exhibit:
The process describing the success or failure of communication is highly
correlated when these attempts are “close” in some domain. To study
AoI in such scenarios, I will introduce fundamental AoI processes
$\Delta(n)$, expressing the discrete-time since the last update from a
source at a monitor: If during time slot $n$ the monitor receives a
status update from the source (event $A(n)$), then $\Delta(n+1)$ is
reset to one, otherwise, $\Delta(n)$ grows linearly in time. This AoI
process is a special random walk with resets. The event process $A(n)$
may be non-stationary and we assume that its temporal dependencies
decay, described by $\alpha$-mixing. With this, moment bounds and growth
bounds follow for the resulting AoI process as a function of the mixing
rate of $A(n)$. In addition, the AoI process $\Delta(n)$ is itself
$\alpha$-mixing. I will then discuss how the fundamental AoI processes
presented can be used to model more complex AoI structures that do not
necessarily reset to one when information is updated and where multiple
sources may lead to AoI at a monitor.