Complex dynamical behaviors of deflection routing on grid networks

Deflection routing is a mechanism to route packets away from congestion. Traditional shortest path routing uses only the static topological information as input, whereas deflection routing takes into account the dynamic queue length information. In the simplest form of deflection routing, a packet being dropped due to queue buffer overflow is "rescued" and is rerouted to other links. Deflection routing can thus reduce the rate of packet drops and allow a network to carry more packets without the need of additional bandwidth. However, it can also lead to unstable deflecting behavior in some congestion scenario. It is important to study deflection behavior when operating near the point of congestion. In this paper, the performance in terms of packet drop rate and traveling time are studied through extensive simulation, and complex behavior in the traffic with self-similarity property is observed and discussed. © 2012 World Scientific Publishing Company.