Hopf bifurcation and oscillations in a communication network with heterogeneous delays

In this paper, we investigate stability, bifurcation and oscillations arising in a single-link communication network model with a large number of heterogeneous users adopting a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)-like rate control scheme with an Active Queue Management (AQM) router. In the system considered, different user delays are known and fixed but taken from a given distribution. It is shown that for any given distribution of delays, there exists a critical amount of feedback (due to AQM) at which the equilibrium loses stability and a limit cycling solution develops via a Hopf bifurcation. The nature (criticality) of the bifurcation is investigated with the aid of Lyapunov-Schmidt perturbation method. The results of the analysis are numerically verified and provide valuable insights into dynamics of the AQM control system.