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.
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}
}
