Age of Information Scaling in Large Networks

We study age of information in a multiple source-multiple destination setting with a focus on its scaling in large wireless networks. There are n nodes that are randomly paired with each other on a fixed area to form n source-destination (S-D) pairs. We propose a three-phase transmission scheme which utilizes local cooperation between the nodes by forming what we call mega update packets to serve multiple S-D pairs at once. We show that under the proposed scheme average age of an S-D pair scales as O(n^1/4) as the number of users, n, in the network grows. To the best of our knowledge, this is the best age scaling result for a multiple source-multiple destination setting.