Age of Information: Concept, Metric and Tool for Network Control

• Other Authors: Ephremides, Anthony (Editor), Sun, Yin (Editor)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2023
• Subjects: Technology: general issues; History of engineering & technology; Energy industries & utilities; cyber-physical system; wireless networked control system; remote control; communication control co-design; age of information; status update; channel quality; value of information; noisy Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process; constrained Markov decision process; reinforcement learning; context-awareness; timely status updates; wireless powered communication networks; real-time state update; utility maximization; parallel servers; energy harvesting; Age of Information; age of incorrect information; multi-user system; scheduling policy; status update system; multiple access channels; multiple-input multiple-output Rayleigh fading channel; discrete-time Markov chain; convex optimization; RF energy-harvesting; cognitive radio network; dynamic programming; query age of information; wireless networks; software-defined radio; scheduling; timely infection tracking; timely tracking of multiple processes; Markovian infection spread model; discrete time status updating system; probabilistic preemption; probability generation function; stationary distribution; information update; reliable backup energy; urgency of information; information freshness; resource constraints; Lyapunov optimization; gossip networks; stochastic hybrid systems
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

The concept of information freshness has developed over the last few years into an active and rapidly growing area of research. It has become known as the Age of Information (AoI). After its initial formal introduction, it became clear that it was very relevant (if not crucial) for numerous applications, ranging from autonomous vehicle systems, the Internet of Things, real-time computing to database access, caching, and wireless communications. More importantly, the combination of the transmission delay and sampling rate that are involved in the formulation of the AoI concept has made it clear that there are far-reaching consequences in the relationship between signal processing, information theory, and control theory at a fundamental level. In this Special Issue, we received contributions that span the full range of applications and theoretical foundations of the AoI concept, which, in fact, is also a performance metric and an analysis tool. Of special interest is the role of AoI in bridging different disciplines and the use of AoI in the analysis and optimization involved in important applications.