A control-theoretic approach to the design of an explicit rate controller for ABR service

We present a control-theoretic approach to the design of closed-loop rate-based flow control in high-speed networks. The proposed control uses a dual proportional-plus-derivative controller, where the control parameters can be designed to ensure the stability of the traffic patterns and propagation delays. We show how the control mechanism can be used to design a controller to support ABR service based on feedback of explicit rates (ERs). We demonstrate the excellent transient and steady-state performance of the controller through a number of examples. We also show experimental results that have been obtained from our asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) testbed, which consists of two interconnected ATM LANs, one located in Princeton, NJ, and the other in Berlin, Germany, with an all-software ER-controller implementation.