Network Decomposition and Optimal Multipath Routing Control Problem for Load Balancing

In this work we face the Routing problem defined as an optimal control problem, with control variables representing the percentages of each flow routed along the available paths (multi-path routing), and a set of cost functions corresponding to the two different objectives of traffic balancing and bottleneck load minimization. A key issue considered in this paper is the possibility of splitting the given network in sub-networks, each one controlled by a separate subset of variables. This of course designs a decomposition of the original control problem in a set of easier-to-be-dealt-with lower dimensional problems. Some simulation results validate the procedure. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.