Synchronization and handoff management schemes for wireless multimedia systems

This paper presents handoff management schemes for synchronization algorithms for wireless multimedia systems. The synchronization and handoff management schemes allow mobile hosts to receive time-dependant multimedia streams without delivery interruption while moving from one cell to another. They also maintain the correct ordering of the media components, through the execution of the wireless multimedia application by a means of timestamped messages passed among mobile hosts, base stations and servers. The timestamp values are used to compute the delay for each multimedia unit for each server. Furthermore, the proposed schemes always search for a quasi-receiver among the base stations with which the mobile hosts can communicate to synchronize multimedia units. We discuss the algorithms and present a set of simulation experiments that evaluate the performance of our schemes, using message complexity and buffer usage at each frame arrival time. Our results indicate that our schemes exhibit no underflow or overflow within the bounded delivery time.     

Programmable mobile networks

Existing mobile systems (e.g., mobile IP, mobile ATM and third generation cellular systems) lack the intrinsic architectural flexibility to deal with the complexity of supporting adaptive mobile applications in wireless and mobile environments. We believe that there is a need to develop alternative network architectures from the existing ones to deal with the demands placed on underlying mobile signalling, adaptation management and wireless transport systems in support of new mobile services, e.g. interactive multimedia and web access. In this paper we present the design, implementation and evaluation of mobiware, a middleware technology that enables the introduction of new services in mobile networks. Mobiware provides a toolkit that service providers can utilize to build services that can dynamically exploit the intrinsic scalable properties of mobile multimedia applications in response to time-varying mobile network conditions. Based on an open programmable networking paradigm, mobiware runs on mobile devices, wireless access points and mobile-capable switch/routers providing a set of open programmable interfaces and distributed objects for adaptive mobile networking. Mobiware is software-intensive and is built on CORBA and Java distributed object technologies. The source code for mobiware v1.0 is freely available (comet.columbia.edu/mobiware) for experimentation.     

An intelligent memory caching architecture for data-intensive multimedia applications

With the rapid developments in cloud computing and mobile networks, multimedia content can be accessed conveniently. Recently, some novel intelligent caching-based approaches have been proposed to improve the memory architectures for multimedia applications. These applications often face bottleneck related challenges which result in performance degradation and service delay issues. Intelligent multimedia network applications access the shared data by using a specific network file system. This results in answering the processing related constraints on hard-drive storage and might result in bringing bottleneck issues. Therefore, to improve the performance of these multimedia network applications, we present an intelligent distributed memory caching system. We integrate the multimedia application message passing interface in a multi-threaded environment and propose an algorithm which can handle concurrent response behavior for different multimedia applications. Results demonstrate that our proposed scheme outperforms traditional approaches in terms of throughput and file read access features.

     

Scheduling multimedia services in a low-power MAC for wireless andmobile ATM networks

This paper describes the design and analysis of the scheduling algorithm for energy conserving medium access control (EC-MAC), which is a low-power medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless and mobile ATM networks. We evaluate the scheduling algorithms that have been proposed for traditional ATM networks. Based on the structure of EC-MAC and the characteristics of wireless channel, we propose a new algorithm that can deal with the burst errors and the location-dependent errors. Most scheduling algorithms proposed for either wired or wireless networks were analyzed with homogeneous traffic or multimedia services with simplified traffic models. We analyze our scheduling algorithm with more realistic multimedia traffic models based on H.263 video traces and self-similar data traffic. One of the key goals of the scheduling algorithms is simplicity and fast implementation. Unlike the time-stamped based algorithms, our algorithm does not need to sort the virtual time, and thus, the complexity of the algorithm is reduced significantly     

Downlink TCP performance under cross layer rate and power allocation in infrastructure TH-PPM UWB networks

Ultra wideband (UWB) systems are currently an important wireless infrastructure for efficient short-range communications and mobile applications. To improve the system efficiency while guaranteeing the radio link level quality of services, the transmission rate and power of the mobile nodes in UWB based infrastructure networks can be dynamically adjusted by executing an optimization algorithm at the access points (APs). In this paper, we present a cross layer rate and power allocation algorithm based on the multilayer model of time hopping (TH) pulse position modulation (PPM) UWB multimedia networks. We consider the performance of the TCP protocol under the proposed cross layer allocation scheme in various realistic UWB based infrastructure networking scenarios.     

基于读写特征的总线分布式同步算法

为了解决分布式系统在总线网络中的读写同步问题,提出了基于读写特征的同步算法。该算法通过区分读写特征提高算法的并发度;通过哈希运算将分布式同步问题转化为单节点同步问题,提高了算法的性能,减少了所需的消息数;通过消息转发等方式,缩短了算法的响应延迟。性能分析和仿真试验表明,该算法有较低的消息复杂度和时间复杂度。     

Proxy agent based replication control model for wireless internet

Mobile computing allows users to request critical information and receive swift responses at any places, but mobile users could suffer from unreliable and ill-timed services due to the characteristics of wireless media. One way that reduces possibility of the unsatisfactory services is data replication. Data replication, however, inevitably induces the overhead of maintaining replica consistency which requires more expensive synchronization mechanism. We propose a new replicated data management scheme in distributed mobile environment. In order to alleviate negative impact of synchronization message overhead in fault-prone mobile environment, we devise a new replication control scheme called proxy quorum consensus (PQC). PQC minimizes the message overhead by coordinating quorum access activities by means of proxy mediated voting (PMV) which exploits reliable proxy hosts instead of unreliable mobile hosts in voting process. We also propose a simulation model to show the performance of PQC. Based on the results of the performance evaluation, we conclude that PQC scheme outperforms the traditional schemes.     

A robust method for soft IP handover

Multimedia streaming over wireless networks - often called mobile multimedia streaming lets users access music, movie, and news services at any time, regardless of location. Given that multimedia streaming is a key goal of third-generation and future wireless networks, vendors will soon deploy streaming clients in advanced mobile terminals. Current mobile terminals, however, fail to adequately support mobile multimedia communication because wireless networks have high packet-loss rates. To eliminate packet loss during handover, we use a packet path diversity scheme and an end-to-end bicasting mechanism that enables soft IP handover. To offset wireless errors, we use a forward error correction (FEC) scheme and embed it in the bicasting mechanism. Our bicasting method encodes the data stream and then splits it, providing more effective diversity than general bicasting, which sends the same data down both paths.' To support our method, we propose the mobile multimedia streaming protocol (MMSP), a new transport-layer protocol that supports multihoming and bicasting in combination with FEC.     

Multimedia Multicast in Mobile Computing: Handoff Management

With rapid technological advances being made in the area of wireless communications it is expected that, in the near future, mobile users will be able to access a wide variety of services such as multicast distribution of multimedia streams. These services are characterized by the integrated processing of different media types, such as audio and video. Different multimedia streams must be played out in a synchronized way. However, due to the asynchronous nature of the communication (packets or radio), some problems can disrupt the synchronization such as delay jitter. In this paper, we present a synchronization protocol for multicast of multimedia streams. It allows a mobile host to playback continuously a multimedia stream. When a mobile host moves from cell to cell, the scheme allows continuous playback. The mechanism used is based on the pre-buffering of media units. We present a computation of the handoff time and a mechanism for the restoration of the initial buffer size. Simulation results show that, when resources are already reserved, the handoff time is bounded and the buffer takes again its initial size.     

An Algorithm for Accurate Distributed Time Synchronization in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks from Noisy Difference Measurements

We propose a distributed algorithm for time synchronization in mobile wireless sensor networks. The problem of time synchronization is formulated as nodes estimating their skews and offsets from noisy difference measurements of offsets and logarithm of skews; the measurements acquired by time‐stamped message exchanges between neighbors. The algorithm ensures that the estimation error is mean square convergent (variance converging to 0) under certain conditions. A sequence of scheduled update instants is used to meet the requirement of decreasing time‐varying gains that need to be synchronized across nodes with unsynchronized clocks. Moreover, a modification on the algorithm is also presented to improve the initial convergence speed. Simulations indicate that highly accurate global time estimates can be achieved with the proposed algorithm for long time durations, while the errors in competing algorithms increase over time.     

一种基于反向CDS树的异构WSNs拓扑构建方法

在无线传感器网络中,拓扑控制是节约能源、延长生命周期的一项关键技术。现有拓扑控制方法的研究主要集中在同构网络,对此,面向异构网络提出了一种低信息复杂度的基于反向连通支配集树的分布式拓扑构建算法。基于最小连通支配集构建虚拟骨干树,改进了A3G算法中节点的适应度函数和算法流程,优化了产生的连通支配集的规模和通信开销,进一步降低信息复杂度,在保证连通性的同时关闭网络冗余节点以降低能耗。理论分析和仿真实验证明,算法能够以较小的时间和通信代价构建拓扑,延长网络生命周期。     

A password based authentication scheme for wireless multimedia systems

In this digital era, where Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing day by day, use of resource constrained devices is also increasing. Indeed, the features such as low cost, less maintenance, more adaptive to hostile environment, etc. make the wireless multimedia devices to be the best choice as the resource constrained devices. For the security, the end user device requires to establish the session key with the server before transferring the data. Mobile is one of the device having more and more usage as wireless multimedia device in recent years. In 2013, Li et al. proposed an efficient scheme for the wireless mobile communications and claimed it to be secure against various attacks. Recently, Shen et al. claimed that the scheme of Li et al. is still vulnerable to the privileged insider attack, the stolen verifier attack and finally proposed a scheme to withstand the mentioned and other attacks. However, in this paper we claim that the scheme of Shen et al. is still susceptible to the user anonymity, the session specific temporary information attack and the replay attack. In addition, Shen et al.’s scheme requires more time due to many operations. Further, we propose an efficient scheme that is secure against various known attacks and due to reduced time complexity our scheme is a preferred choice for the wireless mobile networks and hence for wireless multimedia systems.     

Asynchronous distributed termination—parallel and symmetric solutions with echo algorithms

The principle of message counting is used to detect termination of distributed computations which consist of processes asynchronously communicating over non-FIFO channels. The solution is symmetric and not based on a predefined communication structure. An efficient variant of the echo algorithm, which dynamically builds a spanning tree, allows a parallel and distributed evaluation of the termination predicate in time proportional to the diameter of the communication graph. Concurrent and repeated initiation of the detection algorithm by different processes is possible at any time without prior synchronization due to a subtle method of collision detection and wave extinction, which can be regarded as a distributed election scheme where the average message complexity increases only logarithmically with the number of concurrent initiators. Control messages have a small length and additional communication links are not required. Only a fixed number of simple variables is needed in every process, global knowledge such as the total number of processes or the structure of the network is not used, making the scheme useful for dynamic systems. Several variations of the basic principle are presented, important issues such as message complexity and fault-tolerance are discussed.     

Adaptive versus Reservation-Based Synchronization Protocols—Analysis and Comparison

With the expansion of distributed multimedia applications, such as video-phone, video-conference, and video-on-demand, synchronization among various media (time-dependent, time-independent) becomes an integral part of various protocols, mechanisms and services in the underlying computing and communication systems. The current systems allow and provide two different resource management environments where synchronization will be considered: (1) best effort resource management, and (2) reservation-based resource management with differentiation of service classes. Under these two resource management environments, our goal is to analyze and compare the design, implementation, and performance of synchronization protocols and services. Our approach to accomplish this complex analysis is inductive, because we select a representative protocol from each group, and consider an adaptive synchronization protocol on top of the best effort resource management and a reservation-based synchronization protocol on top of the reservation-based resource management. We believe that both protocols include a rich set of known synchronization algorithms and mechanisms, hence our resulting analysis and comparison show: (1) trade-offs/difference in design complexity of the synchronization protocols (space and time), (2) trade-offs/difference in implementation complexity of the synchronization protocols (space and time), and (3) magnitude of performance changes.     

分布存储媒体传输的同步算法

分布多媒体数据库（ＤＭＤＢ）和分布多媒体信息系统（ＤＭＩＳ）的一个重要需求是多媒体同步传输．文中先分析了在ＤＭＤＢ和ＤＩＭＳ中多媒体同步传输的特点和要求，然后提出了一个能满足这些要求的同步传输方案．在这个方案中，多媒体同步关系是用动态同步Ｐｅｔｒｉ网（ＤＳＰＮ）来显式描述的；通过文中给出的同步传输算式和同步发送算法，可以在ＤＳＰＮ模型的基础上产生同步传输调度方案；同时接收端能根据实际通信状况和多媒体的同步要求，对来自多个服务器的多媒体对象进行动态同步控制．     

Distributed compressed video sensing based on key frame secondary reconstruction

Distributed compressed video sensing scheme combines advantages of compressive sensing and distributed video coding to get better performance, in the meantime, adapts to the limited-resource wireless multimedia sensor network. However, in the conventional distributed compressed video sensing schemes, self-similarity and high sampling rate of the key frame have not been sufficiently utilized, and the overall computational complexity increases with the development of these schemes. To solve the aforementioned problems, we propose a novel distributed compressed video sensing scheme. A new key frame secondary reconstruction scheme is proposed, which further improves the quality of key frame and decreases computational complexity. The key frame’s initial reconstruction value is deeply exploited to assist the key frame secondary reconstruction. Then, a hypotheses set acquisition algorithm based on motion estimation is proposed to improve the quality of hypotheses set by optimizing the searching window under low complexity. Experimental results demonstrate that the overall performance of the proposed scheme outperforms that of the state-of-the-art methods.     

The “Always Best Packet Switching” architecture for SIP-based mobile multimedia services

This paper presents a distributed architecture for the provision of seamless and responsive mobile multimedia services. This architecture allows its user applications to use concurrently all the wireless network interface cards (NICs) a mobile terminal is equipped with. In particular, as mobile multimedia services are usually implemented using the UDP protocol, our architecture enables the transmission of each UDP datagram through the “most suitable” (e.g. most responsive, least loaded) NIC among those available at the time a datagram is transmitted. We term this operating mode of our architecture Always Best Packet Switching (ABPS). ABPS enables the use of policies for load balancing and recovery purposes. In essence, the architecture we propose consists of the following two principal components: (i) a fixed proxy server, which acts as a relay for the mobile node and enables communications from/to this node regardless of possible firewalls and NAT systems, and (ii) a proxy client running in the mobile node responsible for maintaining a multi-path tunnel, constructed out of all the node's NICs, with the above mentioned fixed proxy server. We show how the architecture supports multimedia applications based on the SIP and RTP/RTCP protocols, and avoids the typical delays introduced by the two way message/response handshake of the SIP signaling protocol. Experimental results originated from the implementation of a VoIP application on top of the architecture we propose show the effectiveness of our approach.     

Clustering the wireless Ad Hoc networks: A distributed learning automata approach

In Ad Hoc networks, the performance is significantly degraded as the size of the network grows. The network clustering by which the nodes are hierarchically organized on the basis of the proximity relieves this performance degradation. Finding the weakly connected dominating set (WCDS) is a promising approach for clustering the wireless Ad Hoc networks. Finding the minimum WCDS in the unit disk graph is an NP-Hard problem, and a host of approximation algorithms has been proposed. In this article, we first proposed a centralized approximation algorithm called DLA-CC based on distributed learning automata (DLA) for finding a near optimal solution to the minimum WCDS problem. Then, we propose a DLA-based clustering algorithm called DLA-DC for clustering the wireless Ad Hoc networks. The proposed cluster formation algorithm is a distributed implementation of DLA-CC, in which the dominator nodes and their closed neighbors assume the role of the cluster-heads and cluster members, respectively. In this article, we compute the worst case running time and message complexity of the clustering algorithm for finding a near optimal cluster-head set. We argue that by a proper choice of the learning rate of the clustering algorithm, a trade-off between the running time and message complexity of algorithm with the cluster-head set size (clustering optimality) can be made. The simulation results show the superiority of the proposed algorithms over the existing methods.     

ID-based proxy signature scheme with message recovery

A proxy signature scheme, introduced by Mambo, Usuda and Okamoto, allows an entity to delegate its signing rights to another entity. Identity based public key cryptosystems are a good alternative for a certificate based public key setting, especially when efficient key management and moderate security are required. From inception several ID-based proxy signature schemes have been discussed, but no more attention has been given to proxy signature with message recovery. In this paper, we are proposing provably secure ID-based proxy signature scheme with message recovery and we have proved that our scheme is secure as existential forgery-adaptively chosen message and ID attack. As proposed scheme is efficient in terms of communication overhead and security, it can be a good alternative for certificate based proxy signatures, used in various applications such as wireless e-commerce, mobile agents, mobile communication and distributed shared object systems, etc.