Quality-of-Service Differentiation in Buffer-Aided Cooperative Free Space Optical Communication Systems

In this paper, the problem of Quality-of-Service (QoS) differentiation is studied in the context of Buffer-Aided (BA) cooperative Free Space Optical (FSO) communication systems. This is particularly true since the existing relevant literature overlooked the possibility of preferential treatment of data packets based on their delay requirements. Inspired by this observation, this paper proposes to classify the data packets emanating from the source node into either Delay Tolerant (DT) packets or Non Delay Tolerant (NDT) ones and to service these packets according to this classification at the relay node. Priority queueing is first introduced in the relay's buffer with a view to improving the delay experienced by NDT packets. Class of service mutation is then proposed as a starvation mitigation strategy to better manage the interesting dynamics resulting from the co-existence of packets having different QoS requirements in the same buffer. The various performance measures of interest for the explored QoS-aware communication system are both evaluated mathematically based on a Markov chain analysis and validated through extensive simulations. An asymptotic analysis is also carried out highlighting the dependence of the performance on the system parameters in an intuitive manner.