Error control for multimedia communications in wireless sensor networks: A comparative performance analysis

The emerging multimedia applications of Wireless Sensor Network (WSNs) impose new challenges in design of algorithms and communication protocols for such networks. In the view of these challenges, error control is an important mechanism that enables us to provide robust multimedia communication and maintain Quality of Service (QoS). Despite the existence of some good research works on error control analysis in WSNs, none of them provides a thorough study of error control schemes for multimedia delivery. In this paper, a comprehensive performance evaluation of Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ), Forward Error Correction (FEC), Erasure Coding (EC), link-layer hybrid FEC/ARQ, and cross-layer hybrid error control schemes over Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSNs) is performed. Performance metrics such as energy efficiency, frame Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), frame loss rate, cumulative jitter, and delay-constrained PSNR are investigated. The results of our analysis show how wireless channel errors can affect the performance of multimedia sensor networks and how different error control scenarios can be effective for those networks. The results also provide the required insights for efficient design of error control protocols in multimedia communications over WSNs.