A cross-layer framework for video streaming over wireless ad-hoc networks

Recent development has a tremendous growth in the ad-hoc wireless networks. Ad-hoc wireless networks are dynamic topology networks organized by a collection of mobile nodes that utilize multi-hop radio relaying and are capable of operating without the support of any fixed infrastructure. Ad-hoc wireless networks are very useful in emergency operations, collaborative and distributed computing and military applications. Multicasting plays an important role in the ad-hoc wireless networks, where nodes form groups to carry out certain tasks that require point-to-multipoint and multipoint-to-multipoint voice and data communication. The biggest challenge in the ad-hoc wireless networks is to find an optimized path between the two nodes. In this paper, we present an ant colony based metaheuristic multicast routing protocol for ad-hoc wireless networks, in that we analyzed the performance of dynamic core based multicast routing protocol (DCMP). This approach maps the solution capability of swarm intelligence to mathematical and engineering problems. The DCMP is highly adaptive, efficient and scalable. The performance of these protocols has been examined under realistic scenarios using NS 2, the network simulator tool. Performance has been analyzed for the metrics packet delivery ratio and control overheads with the multicast routing protocol. The proposed ant colony based routing protocol reduce the overheads in routing.

Multiple description coding (MD coding or MDC) generates multiple decodable bitstreams for a single source to combat packet loss, which is suitable for video streaming in error-prone wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper, two problems are investigated for MD coded video streaming in wireless ad hoc networks. The first problem addresses multipath selection for balanced two-description coded video streaming. We formulate an interference-aware MDC multipath routing for single-radio networks by employing a time-division link scheduling method to eliminate wireless interference, and ultimately obtain an optimal path selection corresponding to the minimum achievable distortion. A heuristic solution is developed for the interference-aware multipath routing, by defining a path metric taking into account interference, link bandwidth and link “up” probability. The second problem addresses MDC redundancy control according to varying channel conditions of multiple paths. We design an unbalanced redundant slice based two-description video coding, which optimally selects the amount of inserted redundancy for each description. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MDC multipath routing scheme and the unbalanced MD video coding approach over heterogeneous paths.KeywordsMultiple description video codingmultipath routingwireless ad hoc networkswireless interference

The year 2005 witnesses the third occasion that the Wireless Personal Area and Ad-hoc Networks minitrack is part of the annual HICSS conference. This year there was a substantial increase in submissions (thus a substantial decrease in the acceptance rate), indicating the growing importance of research in this area. The minitrack is also focused on fundamental challenges and issues arising in wireless sensor networks and their applications. Wireless sensor networks differ from other wireless networks in the need for unattended and very low-energy operation, in the possibility of collaboration and distributed sensor calibration, and in the mission oriented nature of most sensor networks. Thus our mini track looks at two very important streams of research. After a strict review process nine papers were selected to be included in the program of the minitrack. The first paper is titled “BT-Crowds: Crowds-style Anonymity with Bluetooth and Java,” presenting an interesting idea on how anonymity can be achieved when sending messages in WPAN environments. Our second paper revisits scatternet formation issues of Bluetooth based ad hoc networks thus the title: “A Dynamic and Distributed Scatternet Formation Protocol for Real-life Bluetooth Scatternets.” The third paper is titled “Secure Dynamic Source Routing” and presents a new variant of the DSR routing protocol with special emphasis on security. In the fourth paper, the discussion concerns “Routing Based Feedback towards Applications in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks,” where routing notifications are relayed via event channels. “A Location Service Mechanism for Position-Based Multicasting in Wireless Mobile Ad hoc Networks” is the title of the fifth paper in the minitrack. It presents some innovative ideas on how location information can be managed for multicast communications in ad-hoc networks. In the sixth paper, “Sliding Window Protocol for Secure Group Communication in Ad Hoc Networks,” the authors propose a sliding window protocol for determining multiple routes in a multi-communications environment. In the seventh paper titled “Ad Hoc Routing Protocol Avoiding Route Breaks Based on AODV,” the authors propose improvements to the well-known AODV ad hoc routing protocol The eight paper, “Joint Scheduling and Routing Algorithm for Ad Hoc Wireless,” presents an innovative and interesting idea wrapped around an iterative algorithm on power control. In the final paper of the minitrack, “Performance Issues of Ad Hoc Routing Protocols in a Network Scenario used for VideoPhone Applications,” the authors present a simulation based performance analysis of different ad hoc routing protocols using the application pointed to in the title. These papers highlight some of the issues and work towards solutions in Personal Area and ad hoc networks which are among the most active research fields in wireless networking. We believe that the papers will provide opportunities for researchers to come together and discuss and debate the results of the interesting experiments that are described in the papers. We are confident that the minitrack will achieve its goal of bringing together leading researchers, to present new results and discuss synergies between the two areas. We also take this opportunity to thank all the reviewers for their valuable and professional work as well as all the authors who submitted papers and thus helped us to create such a strong minitrack. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to the conference organizers for their hard work and help.

In wireless mobile ad-hoc networks, data packets have to be relayed hop by hop from a given source node to a destination node. This means that some or all of the mobile nodes must accept to forward information for the benefit of other nodes. It has been shown by F. Nait-Abdesselam, et al., (2003) that this ability of forwarding packets leads to a new unfairness problem in wireless ad-hoc networks, where a node which is forwarding other node's packets gets less bandwidth, for its own use, than a node which is not participating to the routing service. The proposed RAMAC scheme by F. Nait-Abdesselam, et al., (2003), has shown all its effectiveness to cope with this unfairness problem. However, an extra bandwidth is sometimes allowed to the routing node's own traffic comparing to other nonrouting node's own traffics, and the routing node's routed traffic gets much less bandwidth. This is explained by the fact that at the upper layer (for instance the IP layer) does not differentiate between the routing and the own traffics, and that the multiplicative factor used to compute the new contention window is too aggressive. In this paper, an enhanced RAMAC scheme is proposed, by taking into account the differentiation on top of the MAC layer, between the and routed traffics within a routing node, and by smoothing the multiplicative factor used to compute the new contention window. The simulation results obtained showed a good improvement of the original RAMAC scheme, leading to better approximate equal bandwidth share among all the mobile nodes in the wireless ad-hoc network.

In variable-bit-rate video coding, the video is preprocessed to collect sequence-level statistics, which are used for global bit allocation in the actual encoding stage to obtain a smoothed video presentation quality. However, in real-time video recording and network streaming, this type of two-pass encoding scheme is not allowed because the access to future frames and global statistics is not available. To address this issue, we introduce the concept of low-pass filtering of rate-distortion functions and develop a smoothed rate control (SRC) framework for real-time video recording and streaming. Theoretically, we prove that, using a geometric averaging filter, the SRC algorithm is able to maintain a smoothed video presentation quality while achieving the target bit rate automatically. We also analyze the buffer requirement of the SRC algorithm in real-time video streaming, and propose a scheme to seamlessly integrate robust buffer control into the SRC framework. The proposed SRC algorithm has very low computational complexity and implementation cost. Our extensive experimental results demonstrate that the SRC algorithm significantly reduces the picture quality variation in the encoded video clips.

Blockchain technology is reshaping the video streaming industry by changing how humans create, distribute and consume videos. Leveraging blockchain technology, some emerging video streaming platforms aim to eliminate the centralized video streaming servers by building peer-to-peer content distribution architectures and cryptocurrency-based payment systems. On these blockchain-based platforms, the source video streams are required to be transcoded into multiple versions to meet heterogeneous user demands, which is a computationally intensive and energy consuming process. Meanwhile, the block size of the blockchain has significant impacts on the performance of blockchain-based video streaming systems. In this article, we propose a novel MEC-enabled transcoding framework for blockchain-based video streaming while an adaptive block size scheme is designed for the underlying blockchains. The system architecture of the proposed framework is presented to enable coordination of different aspects. Then we address the video transcoding and block size issues by using the ADMM method, and smart contract is used to facilitate distributed optimization among non-trusting entities. Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

At present, domestic and international research on the video transmission mainly concentrated in video coding, multipath transmission, multicast transmission. The transmission and QoS security technology will be studied to against the characteristics of video transmission and wireless ad hoc network.How to transfer more video streaming under conditions of the limited network resource is a meaningful topic.In this paper,the conception of user level into service classification is introduced and a framework named UVQM is proposed.The UVQM can provide QoS security for video transmission and ensure more streaming transmitted without congestion.

Broadcasting is an essential operation for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks to perform routing path discovery, and it has become the predominant technology for message dissemination in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). In the reactive routing schemes of wireless ad hoc network, Routing Request (RREQ) packets are broadcast from the source, and once received the destination traces back the broadcasting path to build an on-demand route. In VANETs, different broadcasting schemes have been proposed for safety, comfort, and commercial applications. However, broadcasting usually generates a lot of redundant messages which would cause excessive channel contention and packet collisions, especially when the density of the network becomes higher. In this survey article, we first introduce the most common data dissemination techniques used in wireless ad hoc networks. After that, we discuss techniques that have been proposed to mitigate the broadcast storm problem. Finally, we introduce an effective model for analyzing the broadcasting schemes, and based on the model we propose an adaptively adjusted probabilistic scheme that highly improves the reliability of broadcasting in dense ad hoc networks.

Geographic routing protocols establish scalable and robust routes for multi-hop trsdansmission in wireless mobile ad-hoc networks, where accurate location information of the mobile nodes is needed. Aiming to alleviate the influence of location errors, existing works focus on modifying routing protocols through modeling the error sources and mobility prediction. In this paper, we propose a cooperative cluster based geographic routing (CCGR) protocol, which views the cooperative cluster as one virtual relay node, and lessens the impact of location errors through opportunistic receiving and cooperative radio range extension. Opportunistic receiving achieves the link diversity and radio range extension enlarges the transmission distance of one hop. The performance of CCGR is analyzed under scenarios of both static and mobility location errors in terms of reliability index, which is defined to represent the link stability. Further more, numerical results demonstrate that our proposed transmission scheme CCGR outperforms non-cooperative routing schemes in terms of link error probability with location errors.

Minimizing interference of a wireless ad-hoc network in a plane

Using ad hoc networks as alternative means of communication in disaster situations is a salutary solution. However, analysing application performance is mandatory for evaluating such a possibility. In this paper we present the two aspects of our approach to application performance assessment on wireless ad hoc networks. The first aspect refers to real-world tests in which we quantify objectively the relationship between network conditions and application performance. The second aspect is represented by the wireless network (WLAN) emulator that we design to run on StarBED, the large-scale network experiment environment of the Hokuriku Research Centre in Ishikawa, Japan. By combining these two aspects we perform experiments with real applications, while having full control of the network conditions in which the application is tested (when using emulation).

We propose a cache-enabled opportunistic cooperative MIMO (CoMP) framework for wireless video streaming. By caching a portion of the video files at the relays (RS) using a novel MDS-coded random cache scheme, the base station (BS) and RSs opportunistically employ CoMP to achieve spatial multiplexing gain without expensive payload backhaul. We study a two timescale joint optimization of power and cache control to support real-time video streaming. The cache control is to create more CoMP opportunities and is adaptive to the long-term popularity of the video files. The power control is to guarantee the QoS requirements and is adaptive to the channel state information (CSI), the cache state at the RS and the queue state information (QSI) at the users. The joint problem is decomposed into an inner power control problem and an outer cache control problem. We first derive a closed-form power control policy from an approximated Bellman equation. Based on this, we transform the outer problem into a convex stochastic optimization problem and propose a stochastic subgradient algorithm to solve it. Finally, the proposed solution is shown to be asymptotically optimal for high SNR and small timeslot duration. Its superior performance over various baselines is verified by simulations.

Mobile adhoc network is defined as multi-hop radio relaying and are capable of operating without the support of any fixed infrastructure. The absence of any central coordinator makes the routing complex as compared to cellular networks. Ad hoc wireless network consist of multi-hop wireless link with distributing routing. Selforganizing and maintenance are built properties for ad hoc wireless network. The main aim of routing in ad hoc network is to find path with minimum overheads and amendment of broken paths. Time synchronization is difficult in ad hoc wireless networks. Section 1 and section 2 alleged the brief introduction of adhoc wireless network and different routing protocols used for routing in MANET's. Section 3 depicted the characteristics of an ideal routing protocol. Section 4 portrayed some of the previous work done in MANET and last is conclusion given in section 5.

Multimedia content adaption strategies are becoming increasingly important for effective video streaming over the actual heterogeneous networks. Thus, evaluation frameworks for adaptive video play an important role in the designing and deploying process of adaptive multimedia streaming systems. This paper describes a novel simulation framework for rate-adaptive video transmission using the Scalable Video Coding standard (H.264/SVC). Our approach uses feedback information about the available bandwidth to allow the video source to select the most suitable combination of SVC layers for the transmission of a video sequence. The proposed solution has been integrated into the network simulator NS-2 in order to support realistic network simulations. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed solution we perform a simulation study where a video sequence was transmitted over a three network scenarios. The experimental results show that the Adaptive SVC scheme implemented in our framework provides an efficient alternative that helps to avoid an increase in the network congestion in resource-constrained networks. Improvements in video quality, in terms of PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) and SSIM (Structural Similarity Index) are also obtained.

Ad-hoc networks are completely wireless networks of mobile hosts, in which the topology rapidly changes due to the movement of mobile hosts. This frequent topology may lead to sudden packet losses and delays. Transport protocols like TCP have been built mainly for reliable, fixed networks. Hence, when used in ad-hoc networks, TCP misinterprets this loss as congestion and invokes congestion control. This leads to unnecessary retransmissions and loss of throughput. To overcome this problem, a feedback scheme is proposed, so that the source can distinguish between route failure and network congestion. When a route is disrupted, the source is sent a route failure notification (RFN) packet, allowing it to freeze its timers and stop sending packets. When the route is re-established, the source is informed through a route re-establishment notification (RRN) packet, upon which it resumes by unfreezing timers and continuing packet transmissions. The simulated performance of TCP on ad-hoc networks with and without feedback is compared and reported. It is observed that in the event of route failures, as the route re-establishment time increases, the use of feedback provides significant gains in throughput as well as savings in unnecessary packet transmissions. Several further enhancements and directions for future work are also sketched.