Discontinuity-induced bifurcations in TCP/RED communication algorithms

In this paper, we describe a simple second-order discrete-time model for the transmission control protocol (TCP) with random early detection (RED) algorithm. The TCP/RED mechanism is viewed as a feedback control system where TCP adjusts its sending rate depending on packet loss. We investigate bifurcations and chaos in a TCP/RED system with a single TCP connection. We conjecture that the complex behavior observed in the system is attributed to a class of discontinuity-induced bifurcations observed in piecewise smooth systems.