Automatic flow distribution and management in heterogeneous networks

With the development of heterogeneous networks, multimode terminals are becoming more and more popular. However, when there are several different kinds of sessions requiring transmission simultaneously, how to distribute these sessions among the available access networks according to the different features of the flows and the current link conditions of the candidate networks is a new challenge. In this paper, we propose a new solution to the flow distribution problem for multimode terminals. Our proposal, Automatic Flow Distribution (AFD), includes a network selection algorithm located at the terminals and an admission control algorithm located at the access points of the networks. Consequently, the terminals and the networks can cooperate with each other and realize automatic flow distribution among the different available access networks. We utilize the notion of priority, ensuring that the more important sessions have preferential use of the network resources. In addition, in order not to excessively deteriorate the transmission performance of the lower priority flows, a probabilistic suspension scheme is introduced. Finally, the AFD method utilizes the concept of "entropy" to automatically compute the weights of different attributes which influence the flow distribution decision making, thus avoiding the users' difficulty to specify the weights manually.