Multipath video transport over ad hoc networks

Real-time multimedia transport has stringent bandwidth, delay, and loss requirements. It is a great challenge to support such applications in wireless ad hoc networks, which are characterized by frequent link failures and congestion. Using multiple paths in parallel for a real-time multimedia session (called multipath transport) provides a new degree of freedom in designing robust multimedia transport systems. In this article, we describe a framework for multipath video transport over wireless ad hoc networks, and examine its essential components, including multistream video coding, multipath routing, and transport mechanisms. We illustrate by three representative examples how to extend existing video coding schemes in order to fully explore the potential of multipath transport. We also examine important mechanisms in different layers for supporting multipath video transport over ad hoc networks. Our experiments show that multipath transport is a promising technique for efficient video communications over ad hoc networks.     

Entire network load‐aware cooperative routing algorithm for video streaming over mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper, we present an entire network load‐aware cooperative routing algorithm based on IEEE 802.11 multi‐rate for video streaming over mobile ad hoc networks. The proposed routing algorithm is designed to minimize the consumed time slots while guaranteeing the required time slots at all the pairs of adjacent nodes over the route and the contention neighbors of these nodes to support the route. Furthermore, the proposed routing algorithm can distribute the network loads well over the entire network. This technology is essential because video streaming applications require stringent quality of service and even larger network resources compared with traditional data services, and these demands may dramatically increase the entire network load and/or cause network congestion. Finally, experimental results are provided to show a performance of the proposed routing algorithm. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Link efficiency and quality of experience aware routing protocol to improve video streaming in urban VANETs

In a vehicular ad‐hoc network (VANET), vehicles can play an essential role in monitoring areas of a smart city by transmitting data or multimedia content of environmental circumstances like disasters or road conditions. Multimedia content communication with quality of experience (QoE) guarantees is a challenging undertaking in an environment such as that of a VANET. Indeed, a VANET is characterized by numerous varying conditions, significantly impacting its topology, quality of communication channels, and paths with respect to bandwidth, loss, and delay. This paper introduces a link efficiency and quality of experience aware routing protocol (LEQRV) to improve video streaming provisioning in urban vehicular ad‐hoc networks. LEQRV uses an enhanced greedy forwarding‐based approach to create and maintain stable high quality routes for video streaming delivery. It improves the performance of the quality of experience by increasing the achieved QoE scores and reducing the forwarding end‐to‐end delay and frame loss.     

Congestion–distortion optimized video transmission over ad hoc networks

The performance of low-latency video streaming with multipath routing over ad hoc networks is studied. As the available transmission rate of individual links in an ad hoc network is typically limited due to power and bandwidth constraints, a single node transmitting multimedia data may impact the overall network congestion and may therefore need to limit its rate while striving for the highest sustainable video quality. For this purpose, optimal routing algorithms which seek to minimize congestion by optimally distributing traffic over multiple paths are attractive. To predict the end-to-end rate-distortion tradeoff, we develop a model which captures both the impact of encoder quantization and of packet loss due to network congestion on the overall video quality. The validity of the model is confirmed by network simulations performed with different routing algorithms, latency requirements and encoding structures.     

QoS‐aware routing and power control algorithm for multimedia service over multi‐hop mobile ad hoc network

This paper presents a QoS (quality of service) aware routing and power control algorithm consuming low transmission power for multimedia service over mobile ad hoc network. Generally, multimedia services need stringent QoS over the network. However, it is not easy to guarantee the QoS over mobile ad hoc network since its network resources are very limited and time‐varying. Furthermore, only a limited amount of power is available at mobile nodes, which makes the problem more challenging. We propose an effective routing and power control algorithm for multimedia services that satisfies end‐to‐end delay constraint with low transmission power consumption. The proposed algorithm supports the required bandwidth by controlling each link channel quality over route in a tolerable range. In addition, a simple but effective route maintenance mechanism is implemented to avoid link failures that may significantly degrade streaming video quality. Finally, performance comparison with existing algorithms is presented in respect to traditional routing performance metrics, and an achievable video quality comparison is provided to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm for multimedia services over mobile ad hoc network. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design and Implementation of a Network‐Adaptive Mechanism for HTTP Video Streaming

This paper proposes a network‐adaptive mechanism for HTTP‐based video streaming over wireless/mobile networks. To provide adaptive video streaming over wireless/mobile networks, the proposed mechanism consists of a throughput estimation scheme in the time‐variant wireless network environment and a video rate selection algorithm used to increase the streaming quality. The adaptive video streaming system with proposed modules is implemented using an open source multimedia framework and is validated over emulated wireless/mobile networks. The emulator helps to model and emulate network conditions based on data collected from actual experiments. The experiment results show that the proposed mechanism provides higher video quality than the existing system provides and a rate of video streaming almost void of freezing.     

Routing protocol development for quality of service optimization of video‐on‐demand system over mobile ad hoc networks

A video‐on‐demand (VoD) application system over mobile ad hoc networks typically requires particular quality of service (QoS) parameters to be achieved. In this paper, we have proposed a novel QoS‐based routing protocol called as mobile VoD protocol. This protocol has been developed for improving the QoS of the mobile VoD system (normal Mobi_VoD approach). The protocol uses customer caching scheme for storing the first fragment of the entire video in the mobile customers and thereafter broadcast them when the new mobile customers missed the portion of the already transmitted first fragment for reducing the service delay of the customer, consequently optimizing QoS parameters. Various scenarios have been studied, and the efficacy of simulation results proves that the proposed system architecture in which the mobile customers use an ad hoc network caching scheme (mobile VoD protocol) is more efficient and performs better than the existing system (ad hoc on‐demand distance vector protocol) when compared in terms of QoS parameters such as the end‐to‐end delay, energy consumption, packet delivery ratio, throughput, and overhead.     

Delay constraint multipath routing for wireless multimedia ad hoc networks

According to the disadvantages of real time and continuity for multimedia services in ad hoc networks, a delay constraint multipath routing protocol for wireless multimedia ad hoc networks, which can satisfy quality of service (QoS) requirement (QoS multipath optimized link state routing [MOLSR]), is proposed. The protocol firstly detects and analyzes the link delay among the nodes and collects the delay information as the routing metric by HELLO message and topology control message. Then, through using the improved multipath Dijkstra algorithm for path selection, the protocol can gain the minimum delay path from the source node to the other nodes. Finally, when the route is launched, several node‐disjoint or link‐disjoint multipaths will be built through the route computation. The simulation and test results show that QoS‐MOLSR is suitable for large and dense networks with heavy traffic. It can improve the real time and reliability for multimedia transmission in wireless multimedia ad hoc networks. The average end‐to‐end delay of QoS‐MOLSR is four times less than the optimized link state routing. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design and Performance of PRAN: A System for Physical Implementation of Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols

Simulation and physical implementation are both valuable tools in evaluating ad hoc network routing protocols, but neither alone is sufficient. In this paper, we present the design and performance of PRAN, a new system for the physical implementation of ad hoc network routing protocols that unifies these two types of evaluation methodologies. PRAN (physical realization of ad hoc networks) allows existing simulation models of ad hoc network routing protocols to be used - without modification - to create a physical implementation of the same protocol. We have evaluated the simplicity and portability of our approach across multiple protocols and multiple operating systems through example implementations in PRAN of the DSR and AODV routing protocols in FreeBSD and Linux using the standard existing, unmodified ns-2 simulation model of each. We illustrate the ability of the resulting protocol implementations to handle real, demanding applications by describing a demonstration with this DSR implementation transmitting real-time video streams over a multihop mobile ad hoc network; the demonstration features mobile robots being remotely operated based on the real-time video stream transmitted from the robot over the network. We also present a detailed performance evaluation of PRAN to show the feasibility of our architecture     

A heterogeneous‐network aided public‐key management scheme for mobile ad hoc networks

A mobile ad hoc network does not require fixed infrastructure to construct connections among nodes. Due to the particular characteristics of mobile ad hoc networks, most existing secure protocols in wired networks do not meet the security requirements for mobile ad hoc networks. Most secure protocols in mobile ad hoc networks, such as secure routing, key agreement and secure group communication protocols, assume that all nodes must have pre‐shared a secret, or pre‐obtained public‐key certificates before joining the network. However, this assumption has a practical weakness for some emergency applications, because some nodes without pre‐obtained certificates will be unable to join the network. In this paper, a heterogeneous‐network aided public‐key management scheme for mobile ad hoc networks is proposed to remedy this weakness. Several heterogeneous networks (such as satellite, unmanned aerial vehicle, or cellular networks) provide wider service areas and ubiquitous connectivity. We adopt these wide‐covered heterogeneous networks to design a secure certificate distribution scheme that allows a mobile node without a pre‐obtained certificate to instantly get a certificate using the communication channel constructed by these wide‐covered heterogeneous networks. Therefore, this scheme enhances the security infrastructure of public key management for mobile ad hoc networks. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Efficient routing for wireless mesh networks using a backup path

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have a proven record in providing viable solutions for some of the fundamental issues in wireless networks such as capacity and range limitations. WMN infrastructure includes clusters of mobile ad‐hoc networks connected through a fixed backbone of mesh routers. The mesh network can be constrained severely because of various reasons, which could result in performance degradation such as a drop in throughput or long delays. Solutions to this problem often focus on multipath or multichannel extensions to the existing ad‐hoc routing protocols. In this paper, we propose a novel solution by introducing an alternative path to the mesh backbone that traverses the mobile ad‐hoc networks part of the WMN. The new routing solution allows the mobile nodes (MNs) to establish direct communication among peers without going through the backbone. The proposed alternative ad‐hoc path is used only when the mesh backbone is severely constrained. We also propose, for the first time in WMNs, using MNs with two interfaces, one used in the mesh backbone communication and the other engaged in the ad‐hoc network. A scheme is presented for making the MN aware of link quality measures by providing throughput values to the ad‐hoc on‐demand distance vector protocol. We use piggybacking on route reply messages in ad‐hoc on‐demand distance vector to avoid incurring additional costs. We implemented our solution in an OPNET simulator and evaluated its performance under a variety of conditions. Simulation results show that the alternative ad‐hoc path provides higher throughput and lower delays. Delay analysis show that the throughput improvement does not impose additional costs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS guarantee and provisioning for realtime digital video over mobile ad hoc cdma networks with cross-layer design

In this article we investigate the trade-offs and the constraints for multimedia over mobile ad hoc CDMA networks, and propose a cross-layer distributed power control and scheduling protocol to resolve those trade-offs and constraints in order to provide high-quality video over wireless ad hoc CDMA networks. In particular, a distributed power control and scheduling protocol is proposed to control the incurred delay of video streaming over multihop wireless ad hoc networks, as well as the multiple access interference (MAI). We also investigate the impacts of Doppler spread and noisy channel estimates upon the end-to-end video quality, and provide a relatively robust system which employs a combination of power control and coding/interleaving to combat the effects of Doppler spread by exploiting the increased time diversity when the Doppler spread becomes large. Thus, more robust end-to-end video quality can be achieved over a wide range of channel conditions     

A quantitative comparison of ad hoc routing protocols with and without channel adaptation

To efficiently support tetherless applications in ad hoc wireless mobile computing networks, a judicious ad hoc routing protocol is needed. Much research has been done on designing ad hoc routing protocols and some well-known protocols are also being implemented in practical situations. However; one major imperfection in existing protocols is that the time-varying nature of the wireless channels among the mobile-terminals is ignored; let alone exploited. This could be a severe design drawback because the varying channel quality can lead to very poor overall route quality in turn, resulting in low data throughput. Indeed, better performance could be achieved if a routing protocol dynamically changes the routes according to the channel conditions. In this paper, we first propose two channel adaptive routing protocols which work by using an adaptive channel coding and modulation scheme that allows a mobile terminal to dynamically adjust the data throughput via changing the amount of error protection incorporated. We then present a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the two classes of ad hoc routing protocols. Extensive simulation results indicate that channel adaptive ad hoc routing protocols are more efficient in that shorter delays and higher rates are achieved, at the expense of a higher overhead in route set-up and maintenance.     

Link failure resilience in the dynamic source routing protocol

Reactive routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks reduce the routing cost in high mobility environments where link failures are frequent. However, route discovery in these protocols is typically performed via network‐wide flooding, which consumes a substantial amount of bandwidth and causes a significant latency to data packets. To improve the dynamic source routing (DSR) protocol and overcome these limitations, we propose two optimization techniques, viz. generalized salvaging mechanism and cache maintenance using a distributed topology discovery mechanism through mobile ant‐agents. We show, by simulations, that our contributions improve the DSR performance, and particularly in large scale networks with high mobility and heavy load that cause frequent link failures. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Video transmission in mobile ad hoc networks using multiple interfaces and multiple channels

Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are an important part of wireless communications and the increasing use of mobile devices is confirming that. MANETs can be of great value in Emergency Response situations where communication between mobile deployed units is critical and wired or wireless infrastructures may not be present or functional. In emergency scenarios, multimedia communication is very important for decision making and situation assessment. This requires up‐to‐date (on‐line) information feed on the situation, including voice and video from the affected zone. However, MANETs do not seem to efficiently support multimedia applications, and this is quite evident in video transmission. One way to remedy this is to use more (wireless) interfaces per mobile node and consequently more communication channels. In this work, we perform an analytical study on the use of multiple interfaces and multiple channels (MIMC) in video transmission with respect to the requirements of Emergency Response Ad hoc Networks. More specifically, we examine and present the impact of using MIMC on MANETs during video transmission applications, we evaluate the performance of three basic routing protocols in MANETs, and we propose a channel selection mechanism in MANET nodes with MIMC for enhanced video transmission. In addition, we evaluate video transmission streams with rate adaptation and present comparative results. The proposed mechanism is evaluated using the ns‐2 network simulator and the simulations are performed for a variety of topologies. Simulation results show that the different routing protocols respond differently when MIMC is introduced. The Ad hoc On‐Demand Multipath Distance Vector and (especially) the Ad hoc On‐Demand Distance Vector routing protocols benefit significantly, while the Destination Sequenced Distance Vector shows fewer improvements. The proposed mechanism is shown to be beneficial for transmitting video streams and enhances the network's ability to accommodate more streams and reduce packet delay. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive video protection in large scale peer‐to‐peer video streaming over mobile wireless mesh networks

Because video streaming over mobile handheld devices has been of great interest, the necessity of introducing new methods with low implementation cost and scalable infrastructures is a strong demand of the service. In particular, these requirements are present in popular wireless networks such as wireless mesh networks (WMN). Peer‐to‐peer (P2P) networks promise an efficient scalable network infrastructure for video streaming over wired and wireless networks. Limited resources of the peers in P2P networks and high error rate in wireless channels make it more challenging to run P2P streaming applications over WMNs. Therefore, it is necessary to design efficient and improved error protection methods in P2P video streaming applications over WMNs. In this paper, we propose a new adaptive unequal video protection method specially intended for large scale P2P video streaming over mobile WMNs. Using this method, different frames have different priorities in receivers along the recovery process. Moreover, we precisely and completely evaluate different aspects related to frame protection in these networks using five important performance metrics including video distortion, late arrival distortion, end‐to‐end delay, overhead and initial start‐up delay. The results obtained from a precise simulation in OMNeT++ show that the proposed adaptive method significantly outperforms other solutions by providing better video quality on mobile wireless nodes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Survey of Routing Protocols that Support QoS in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The explosive growth in the use of mobile devices coupled with users' desires for real-time applications has provided new challenges in the design of protocols for mobile ad hoc networks. Chief among these challenges to enabling real-time applications for mobile ad hoc networks is incorporating support for quality of service (QoS), such as meeting bandwidth or delay constraints. In particular, it is important that routing protocols incorporate QoS metrics in route finding and maintenance to support end-to-end QoS. This article extensively and exclusively studies the issues involved with QoS-aware routing and presents an overview and comparison of existing QoS-aware routing protocols. In addition, the open issues that must be addressed to fully support QoS-aware routing are discussed.