Criteria to Design Chaotic Self-Similar Traffic Generators

A self-similar behavior characterizes the traffic in many real-world communication networks. This traffic is traditionally modeled as an ON/OFF discrete-time second-order self-similar random process. The self-similar processes are identified by means of a polynomially decaying trend of the autocovariance function. In this work we concentrate on two criteria to build a chaotic system able to generate self-similar trajectories. The first criterion relates self-similarity with the polynomially decaying trend of the autocovariance function. The second one relates self-similarity with the heavy-tailedness of the distributions of the sojourn times in the ON and/or OFF states. A family of discrete-time chaotic systems is then devised among the countable piecewise affine Pseudo-Markov maps. These maps can be constructed so that the quantization of their trajectories emulates traffic processes with different Hurst parameters and average load. Some simulations are reported showing how, according to the theory, the map design is able to fit those specifications.