Numerical Methods of Multifractal Analysis in Information Communication Systems and Networks

In this chapter, the main principles of the theory of fractals and multifractals are stated. A singularity spectrum is introduced for the random telecommunication traffic, concepts of fractal dimensions and scaling functions, and methods used in their determination by means of Wavelet Transform Modulus Maxima (WTMM) are proposed. Algorithm development methods for estimating multifractal spectrum are presented. A method based on multifractal data analysis at network layer level by means of WTMM is proposed for the detection of traffic anomalies in computer and telecommunication networks. The chapter also introduces WTMM as the informative indicator to exploit the distinction of fractal dimensions on various parts of a given dataset. A novel approach based on the use of multifractal spectrum parameters is proposed for estimating queuing performance for the generalized multifractal traffic on the input of a buffering device. It is shown that the multifractal character of traffic has significant impact on queuing performance characteristics.