Cross-Layer Packetization and Retransmission Strategies for Delay-Sensitive Wireless Multimedia Transmission

Existing wireless networks provide dynamically varying resources with only limited support for the quality of service required by the bandwidth-intense, loss-tolerant and delay-sensitive multimedia applications. This variability of resources does not significantly impact delay insensitive data transmission (e.g., file transfers), but has considerable consequences for multimedia applications. Recently, the research focus has been to adapt existing algorithms and protocols at the lower layers of the protocol stack to better support multimedia transmission applications and conversely, to modify application layer solutions to cope with the varying wireless networks resources. In this paper, we show that significant improvements in wireless multimedia performance can be obtained by deploying a joint application-layer adaptive packetization and prioritized scheduling and MAC-layer retransmission strategy. We deploy a state-of-the-art wavelet coder for the compression of the video data that enables on-the-fly adaptation to changing channel conditions and inherent prioritization of the video bitstream. We pose the cross-layer problem as a distortion minimization given delay constraints and derive analytical solutions by modifying existing joint source-channel coding theory aimed at fulfilling rate, rather than delay, constraints. We also propose real-time algorithms that explicitly consider the available information about previously transmitted packets. The obtained results show significant improvements in terms of video quality as opposed to ad-hoc optimizations currently deployed, while the complexity associated with performing this optimization in real time, i.e., at transmission time, is limited     

Error-Resilient Video Encoding and Transmission in Multirate Wireless LANs

In this paper, we present a cross-layer approach for video transmission in wireless LANs that employs joint source and application-layer channel coding, together with rate adaptation at the wireless physical layer (PHY). While the purpose of adopting PHY rate adaptation in modern wireless LANs like the IEEE 802.11a/b is to maximize the throughput, in this paper we exploit this feature to increase the robustness of wireless video. More specifically, we investigate the impact of adapting the PHY transmission rate, thus changing the throughput and packet loss channel characteristics, on the rate-distortion performance of a transmitted video sequence. To evaluate the video quality at the decoder, we develop a cross-layer modeling framework that considers jointly the effect of application-layer joint source-channel coding (JSCC), error concealment, and the PHY transmission rate. The resulting models are used by an optimization algorithm that calculates the optimal JSCC allocation for each video frame, and PHY transmission rate for each outgoing transport packet. The comprehensive simulation results obtained with the H.264/AVC codec demonstrate considerable increase in the PSNR of the decoded video when compared with a system that employs separately JSCC and PHY rate adaptation. Furthermore, our performance analysis indicates that the optimal PHY transmission rate calculated by the proposed algorithm, can be significantly different when compared with rate adaptation algorithms that target throughput improvement.     

Bandwidth allocation for video transmission with differentiated quality of experience over wireless networks

Delivering digital video content with enhanced quality of experience to the end users over error-prone multi-hop wireless networks is a challenging issue. In video transmission over such wireless networks, many network-based (packet loss, delay, etc.) and source-based (encoding quantization level etc.) parameters can impose some levels of impairment on the perceived video quality. In a video quality enhancement strategy, accurate video quality metrics play a crucial role in the designing process of optimal rate (bandwidth) allocation algorithms. Many cross-layer optimization (CLO) based rate allocation strategies have been developed for this purpose which consider different objective functions (congestion level, total packet loss, etc.) in wireless networks. The main contributions of the proposed work are twofold. At first, an optimal bandwidth allocation framework is being developed in which based on some network-specific constraints and by incorporating an accurate video quality metric, the total weighted quality of experience of some competing video sources is being optimized bases on cross-layer design techniques. Secondly, these optimal rates have been used for differentiated Quality of Experience (QoE) enforcement between multiple competing video sources. The resulting optimal rates can be used as rate-feedbacks for on-line rate adaptation of a moderate video encoder such as MPEG4. The aforementioned weight parameters are selected based on the importance of each video sequence’s quality and can be associated with some previous service level agreement (SLA) based prices. Some numerical analysis have been presented to validate the theoretical results and to verify the claims.     

Hybrid Erasure-Error Protocols for Wireless Video

Many recently proposed cross-layer protocols for wireless video, have advocated the relay of corrupted packet to higher layers. Such protocols lead to both errors and erasures at the compressed video application layer. We generically refer to such schemes as hybrid erasure-error protocols (HEEPs). In this paper, we analyze the utility of HEEPs for efficient transmission of video over wireless channels. In order to maintain the generic nature of the deductions in this paper, we base our analysis on two (rather abstract) communication schemes for wireless video: hybrid error-erasure cross-layer design (CLD) and hybrid error-erasure cross-layer design with side-information (CLDS). We make a comparative analysis of the channel capacities of these schemes over single and multi-hop wireless channels to identify the conditions under which the HEEPs can provide improved performance over conventional (CON) protocols. In addition, we employ Reed Solomon (RS) and low-density parity check (LDPC)-code-based forward-error correction (FEC) schemes to illustrate that the improvement in capacity can easily enable an FEC scheme employed in conjunction with a HEEP to provide improved throughput. Finally we compare the performance of CON, CLD, and CLDS in terms of video quality using the H.264 video standard. The simulation results show a significant advantage for the HEEPs     

A Cross-Layer Approach to Multichannel MAC Protocol Design for Video Streaming Over Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

This paper presents a cross-layer design for a reliable video transmission over wireless ad hoc networks based on multichannel MAC protocol with TDMA. First, we conduct a study of the multichannel MAC protocol through Markov chain model. Based on this study, two novel cross-layer modules are adopted for the design of multichannel MAC protocol. First, we adopt maximum latency rate (MLR) as the channel quality metric. Unlike the traditional MAC design based on network allocation vector (NAV), MLR is implemented to provide differentiated traffic so that the channel with smaller MLR time is initiated for higher priority traffic. Second, we adopt two congestion-aware metrics, namely MAC utilization and queue length of MAC layer, to improve the congestion-aware routing protocols with AODV and DSR. These two novel modules allow the proposed MAC protocol design to achieve high performance video transmission over wireless ad hoc networks. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the state-of-the-art schemes under multichannel environments in wireless ad hoc networks for as much as 3.6 dB in PSNR. Such significant performance enhancement confirms that the cross-layer approach is very effective for multichannel MAC protocol design.     

Adaptive congestion control scheme in mobile ad-hoc networks

In the past, several authors have expressed their concerns over the poor congestion control in mobile wireless ad-hoc networks using traditional reference layer model. Many solutions were proposed to handle growing traffic and congestion in the network, using link layer information. Existing solutions have shown difficulties in dealing with congestion with varying packets drop. Moreover, ensuring the superior performance of congestion control schemes with traditional referenced layer model is a challenging issue, due to quick topology changes, dynamic wireless channel characteristics, link-layer contentions, etc. In this paper, we propose an effective cross-layer adaptive transmission method to handle the congestion in mobile wireless ad-hoc networks adequately. Simulation results exemplify the usefulness of the proposed method in handling congestion, and yields better results compared to existing approaches.     

跨层反馈在无线视频自适应编码中的应用

为提高压缩后视频在无线信道中的容错能力,结合当前无线通信系统中广泛使用的自适应调制编码(AMC)技术和自动重传请求(ARQ)技术,提出一种新的基于跨层反馈的自适应编码方案。利用该设计方案,应用层可以利用底层的反馈信息感知到当前的信道变化并调整相应的码控策略来提高视频传输的鲁棒性。实验结果表明,与没有利用跨层反馈的其他方法相比,本文编码策略能提供更好的视频传输质量。     

Providing adaptive QoS to layered video over wireless local area networks through real-time retry limit adaptation

Robust streaming of video over 802.11 wireless LANs (WLANs) poses many challenges, including coping with packets losses caused by network buffer overflow or link erasures. In this paper, we propose a novel error protection method that can provide adaptive quality-of-service (QoS) to layered coded video by utilizing priority queueing at the network layer and retry-limit adaptation at the link layer. The design of our method is motivated by the observation that the retry limit settings of the MAC layer can be optimized in such a way that the overall packet losses that are caused by either link erasure or buffer overflow are minimized. We developed a real-time retry limit adaptation algorithm to trace the optimal retry limit for both the single-queue (or single-layer) and multiqueue (or multilayer) cases. The video layers are unequally protected over the wireless link by the MAC with different retry limits. In our proposed transmission framework, these retry limits are dynamically adapted depending on the wireless channel conditions and traffic characteristics. Furthermore, the proposed priority queueing discipline is enhanced with packet filtering and purging functionalities that can significantly save bandwidth by discarding obsolete or un-decodable packets from the buffer. Simulations show that the proposed cross-layer protection mechanism can significantly improve the received video quality.     

无线上行视频流的跨层容错传输方法

如何通过资源受限的移动通信终端提升无线上行视频流的抗误性能是亟待解决的重要问题。通过不同通信层次的联合调度,提出了一种跨层容错传输方案。移动通信终端的网络层代理首先利用容错包调度为视频流的延时约束帧集合提供重要性分类,随后该终端的链路层代理利用无线链路单元的优先级调度实现选择性重传。在调度延时与传输带宽限制下,跨层容错传输能够将突发错误转移到延时约束帧集合的低优先级视频数据中,从而在突发易错传输环境中实现了无线链路单元粒度的渐进式传输和平稳退化。     

Optimal Carrier Loading Control for the Enhancement of Visual Quality over OFDMA Cellular Networks

A recent dynamic increase in demand for wireless multimedia services has greatly accelerated the research on dynamic channel adaptation of high quality video applications. In this paper, we explore a theoretical approach to cross-layer optimization between multimedia and wireless networks by means of a quality criterion termed “visual throughput” for downlink video transmission using a layered coding algorithm. We obtain the optimal loading ratio of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) subcarriers through an optimization problem balancing the tradeoff relationship between inter-cell interference (ICI) and channel throughput. Through numerical link capacity analysis, we show that the upper bounds of the visual throughput gain at the cell boundary is obtained at about 27%.      

改进的遗传算法无线视频传感器网络协作路由技术研究

提出了适用于无线视频传感器网络的基于能量感知的跨层交互多路径协作路由技术.该技术首先采用了基于视频传感器节点感知距离的遗传优化算法,预测传输视频数据的能耗和剩余能量,结合无线信道质量和视频编码算法建立一种跨层协同的工作体系,优化节点传输视频数据的能耗、时延和带宽等因素;然后建立应用层、网络层和物理层跨层协同工作体系.仿真实验和数学分析表明,该技术不仅能够较好地满足视频传感器网络应用业务的多样性QoS数据传输性能需求,而且可以充分利用视频传感器网络受限的计算、存储能力和能量等资源.     

Wireless multimedia delivery over 802.11e with cross-layer optimization techniques

The use of wireless networks has spread further than simple data transfer to delay sensitive and loss tolerant multimedia applications. Over the past few years, wireless multimedia transmission across Wireless Local area Networks (WLANs) has gained a lot of attention because of the introduction of technologies such as Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, 3G, and WiMAX. The IEEE 802.11 WLAN has become a dominating technology due to its low cost and ease of implementation. But, transmitting video over WLANs in real time remains a challenge because it imposes strong demands on video codec, the underlying network, and the Media Access Control (MAC) layer. This paper presents a cross-layer mapping algorithm to improve the quality of transmission of H.264 (a recently-developed video coding standard of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group) video stream over IEEE 802.11e-based wireless networks. The major goals of H.264 standard were on improving the rate distortion and the enhanced compression performance. Our proposed cross-layer design involves the mapping of H.264 video slices (packets) to appropriate access categories of IEEE 802.11e according to their information significance. We evaluate the performance of our proposed cross-layer design and the results obtained demonstrate its effectiveness in exploiting characteristics of the MAC and application layers to improve the video transmission quality.     

A Low-Complexity Cross-Layer Optimization Algorithm for Video Communication Over Wireless Networks

Recent years have witnessed a rapid increment in video applications over wireless networks including on-demand video streaming and video phoning. This growth has also brought the need to find a good compromise in the conflict between resource limitations affecting mobile devices and the desire for high-quality multimedia services. It is possible to face this problem adopting a cross-layer strategy that jointly tunes the parameters of each layer in the network protocol stack. In this optimization strategy, complexity is one of the most significant issues because of the limited computational resources and power supply. The paper presents a low-complexity cross-layer algorithm that is able to jointly tune the parameters of different protocol layers by adopting simple but effective models. The quality of the reconstructed video sequence, the produced bit rate, and the service class associated to each packet are seen as functions of the percentage of null DCT coefficients. This modeling permits to find a closed-form solution to the joint optimization problem that can be computed with a limited number of operations and grants, at the same time, a good visual quality in the reconstructed sequence.     

QoE driven cross-layer scheme for DASH-based scalable video transmission over LTE

Recently using Scalable Video Coding (SVC) in Dynamic Adaptive Streaming of over HTTP (DASH) has attracted more and more attention. In this paper, we present a Quality-of-Experience (QoE) driven Cross-Layer Scheme (QCLS) for DASH-based scalable video transmission over LTE. Specifically, assuming the priority-based extraction be exploited for bitstream adaption, we first propose a new continuous Rate-Distortion (RD) model for scalable video stream. Then to guarantee continuous playback, a two-level rate adaption algorithm is presented: a novel throughput-based algorithm is implemented for dynamic selection of segment bitrate on the DASH client side at the first level, and the second level applies the rate adaption by designing a suitable packet scheduling strategy at the Base Station. The packets of each segment with lower priority that are still left in the packet queues when their playback deadline is missed, would be considered as the ones that are beyond the actual transmission ability and discarded by the second-level rate adaption. Furthermore, in order to reasonably utilize the wireless resources in LTE (Long-Term Evolution) system, a cross-layer optimization problem that maximizes the total weighted received quality of the currently transmitted segments for all clients is formulated. In view of its high complexity of obtaining the optimal solution, we develop an approach of the suboptimal solution, which can determine a locally optimal transmission strategy in resource allocation as well as the corresponding Modulation and Coding Scheme. Accordingly, the transmission rate of each client can be obtained. Simulation results show that our proposed cross-layer scheme can provide better performance than the existing ones for DASH-based scalable video transmission over LTE.     

Wireless MediaNets: application-driven next-generation wireless IP networks

Thanks to the explosive creation of multimedia contents, the pervasive adoption of multimedia coding standards and the ubiquitous access of multimedia services, multimedia networking is everywhere in our daily lives. Unfortunately, the existing best effort IP network infrastructure, originally designed with little real-time QoS requirement, has started to suffer from performance degradation on emerging multimedia networking applications. This inadequacy problem is further deepened by the prevalence of last/first-mile wireless networking, such as Wi-Fi, mobile WiMAX, and many wireless sensors and ad-hoc networks. This can be evidenced by more and more fragmentation of application-driven IP-based networks, such as for power grid distribution, networked security surveillance, intelligent transportation communication, and many other sensor networks. To overcome the QoS challenges, the next generation wireless IP networks have to be architected in a top-down manner, i.e., application-driven layered protocol design. More specifically, based on the application media data, compression schemes are applied, the subsequent Network, MAC- and PHY-layered protocols need to be accordingly or jointly enhanced to reach the optimal performance. This is the fundamental concept behind the design of Wireless MediaNets. In this survey paper, I will address the QoS challenges specifically encountered in video over heterogeneous wireless broadband networks and address several application-driven Wireless MediaNet solutions based on effective cross-layer integration of APP and MAC/PHY layers. More specifically, the congestion control for achieving airtime fairness of video streaming to maximize the link adaptation performance of Wi-Fi, the minimum latency event-driven data exchange for distributed wireless ad-hoc sensor networks, and the opportunistic multicast of scalable video live streaming over mobile WiMAX.     

A multi-layer experimental study of multimedia and QoS communication in wireless mesh networks

A significant issue in Mesh networks is to support multimedia transmissions while providing Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees to mobile users. For real-time multimedia streaming, unstable throughput or insufficient bandwidth will incur unexpected delay or jitter, and it remains difficult to provide comprehensive service guarantees for a wireless mesh environment. In this paper, we target the problem of providing multimedia QoS in wireless mesh networks. We design and implement a campus test-bed for supporting multimedia traffic in mobile wireless mesh networks, and investigate in detail some possible improvements on a number of layers to enable multimedia transmission over wireless networks with QoS support. We first study a number of improvements of some existing routing protocols to support multimedia transmissions. Some new admission control and rate control mechanisms are studied and their performance gains are verified in our experiments. In our new cross-layer adaptive rate control (CLARC) mechanism, we adaptively change the video encoder’s output bit rate based on the available network bandwidth to improve the quality of the received video. We also design a mobile gateway protocol to connect the MANET to Internet and a wireless LAN management protocol to automatically manage WLAN to provide some QoS.     

基于视频业务质量优化的认知无线电传输信道选择

认知无线电网络中,次级用户选择信道的传统技术基于信道特性对传输信道进行随机选择,忽略了应用层视频业务对信道质量的要求。针对该问题提出了一种基于视频业务质量优化的信道选择技术,优化视频业务端到端的传输质量。通过最小化端到端视频失真,跨层优化综合选择物理层传输信道、自适应调制与编码模式以及应用层的编码量化参数。该方法在多信道认知无线电网络下进行了大量的视频传输仿真模拟实验。实验结果表明该方法能够比不含信道选择的跨层优化方法提高认知无线电网络下次级用户的视频传输业务客观质量1.5 dB以上。     

Low-Delay Low-Complexity Bandwidth-Constrained Wireless Video Transmission Using SVC Over MIMO Systems

We propose an efficient strategy for the transmission of scalable video over multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems. In this paper, we use the latest scalable H.264 codec (SVC), which provides combined temporal, quality and spatial scalability. At the transmitter, we estimate the decoded video distortion for given channel conditions taking into account the effects of quantization, packet loss and error concealment. The proposed scalable decoder distortion algorithm offers low delay and low complexity. The performance of this method is validated using experimental results. In our proposed system, we use a MIMO system with orthogonal space-time block codes (O-STBC) that provides spatial diversity and guarantees independent transmission of different symbols within the block code. The bandwidth constrained allocation problem considered here is simplified and solved for one O-STBC symbol at a time. Furthermore, we take the advantage of the hierarchical structure of SVC to attain the optimal solution for each group of pictures (GOP) of the video sequence. We incorporate the estimated decoder distortion to optimally select the application layer parameter, i.e., quantization parameter (QP), and physical layer parameters, i.e., channel coding rate and modulation type for wireless video transmission.      

多信道无线网状网跨层优化研究

针对多网卡多信道无线Mesh网络容量问题,基于无线信道干扰模型,在给定各节点物理层发射功率的条件下,联合考虑无线Mesh网络传输层的流速控制、网络层的路由算法和MAC层的信道分配等问题,通过采用二次路由计算策略,提出了一个跨层联合优化算法,仿真结果表示,提出的算法能提高网络吞吐量。     

Online Optimization of Data Transmission Policies for Wireless Networks

In wireless communication networks, power control is necessary to maintain desired link quality, minimize interference and prolong battery lifetime of mobile terminals. In this technical note we describe the wireless channel of a wireless network as a finite state Markov chain and study packet transmission strategies for data services. Under the Markov channel assumption, we prove the optimal strategy is of threshold structure: corresponding to each channel state there exists a positive threshold on queue length; once the queue length exceeds the threshold, the network should transmit packets over its available capacity; otherwise there should be no transmission. A single sample path-based optimization algorithm is proposed to tune the thresholds. Since only a single sample path is involved, the proposed algorithm can be implemented online.