We consider the problem of scheduling the transmission of packets in an input-queued switch. In order to achieve maximum throughput, scheduling algorithms usually employ the queue length as a parameter for determining the priority to serve a given queue. In this work we propose a novel scheme to optimize the performance of a preexisting scheduler. Our main idea is to assist the scheduling decision, considering "messages" rather than queue lengths. Such messages are obtained by running an

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... ve parallel algorithm, inspired by a rigorous Belief-Propagation approach. We demonstrate that Belief-Propagation-assisted scheduling is able to boost the performance of a given scheduler, reaching almost optimal throughput, even under critical traffic scenarios. Index Terms-Scheduling, input queued switches, belief propagation, maximum weight matching problem, router architectures. S. Atalla and P. Giaccone are with the