A Novel Whittle Index-Based Scheduling for Age of Information Minimization in IoT Networks
Published in IEEE Smart Internet of Things (SmartIoT), 2025
[C1] A. Morteza, D. Qiu, and Y. R. Shayan, "A Novel Whittle Index-Based Scheduling for Age of Information Minimization in IoT Networks," Proc. IEEE International Conference on Smart Internet of Things (SmartIoT), Sydney, Australia, pp. 184–190, 2025.
Age of InformationWhittle IndexMarkov Decision ProcessReinforcement LearningMQTTIoT Scheduling
Abstract: The Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol has become a widely adopted standard in IoT systems due to its lightweight and energy-efficient publish/subscribe architecture. However, ensuring timely data delivery remains a challenge, especially for applications requiring fresh information. In this paper, we address this issue by integrating the Age of Information (AoI) metric into the MQTT framework. We formulate the MQTT-AoI optimization problem as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and propose a novel Whittle index-based scheduling policy. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach effectively minimizes AoI while satisfying resource constraints. Furthermore, we show that the dual variables converge, ensuring the algorithm reaches a feasible solution under hard constraints. This work provides a practical solution for managing information freshness in MQTT-based IoT networks.
@inproceedings{Morteza2025SmartIoT,
author = {Arian Morteza and Dongyu Qiu and Y. R. Shayan},
title = {A Novel Whittle Index-Based Scheduling for Age of Information Minimization in IoT Networks},
booktitle = {2025 IEEE International Conference on Smart Internet of Things (SmartIoT)},
year = {2025},
pages = {184--190},
address = {Sydney, Australia},
doi = {10.1109/SmartIoT66867.2025.00033},
keywords = {Age of Information, Whittle Index, Markov Decision Process, Reinforcement Learning, MQTT, IoT Scheduling}
}
