Age Of Information Of Multiple Sources With Queue Management

We consider a system of multiple sources generating status update packets, which need to be sent by a single transmitter to a destination over a network. In the model we study, the packet generation time may vary at each source, and the packets go through the network with a random delay. Each update carries a time stamp of its generation, allowing the destination to calculate for each source the so called Age of Information, which measures the timeliness of each status update arriving. Considering that queuing delay can unnecessarily increase the age of a critical status update, we propose here a queue management technique, in which we maintain a queue with only the latest status packet of each source, overwriting any previously queued update from that source. This simple technique drastically limits the need for buffering and can be applied in systems where the history of source status is not relevant. We show that this scheme results in significantly less transmissions compared to the standard M/M/1 queue model. Furthermore, the proposed technique reduces the per source age of information, especially in settings not using queue management with high status update generation rates.