ANALYSIS OF A TIME-LIMITED POLLING SYSTEM

In this paper, we consider a cyclic polling system in which arrivals a re governed by the Markovian arrival process. Each queue is visited ac cording to the exhaustive time-limited service discipline to coincide with IEEE 802.5 and 802.4 standards. Using the decomposition approach, each queue is analyzed as a single server queue with vacation. By exp loiting the properties of the discrete time phase distribution we cons truct the vacation period from the visit period of the other queues in the polling system. Using an iterative procedure we were able to comp ute the queue length distribution and the average waiting time for pol ling systems with finite capacity (or infinite capacity) in all queues . Comparison of the mean waiting time with simulation results shows th at the proposed models give reasonable results. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce B.V.