Generation of random variables for modelling VBR multimedia sources

The design and performance evaluation of multimedia systems require the availability of adequate models to mimic the statistical properties of the traffic generated by a multimedia source. In this paper the authors propose a very simple method for the generation of discrete-time and discrete-state autocorrelated random variables which can be used to model a traffic source by simulation. The probability distribution and autocorrelation sequence of the variables generated exactly match the corresponding experimental histograms of the source to be modelled when the experimental autocorrelation sequence is decreasing with downward convexity. In this paper an analytical demonstration of the method proposed is given and its use is illustrated by three telecommunications examples.