Priority Based Adaptive Video Transmission Over Ad Hoc Networks

A Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) is composed of a set of wireless mobile devices that are able to communicate with each other in a peer-to-peer mode. In recent years video streaming over MANETs has drawn significant attention due to the popularity of high-speed IEEE 802.11 standard series. However, it is still a challenging task for channel variation and bandwidth limitation and fluctuation. In this paper a priority based cross-layer transmission scheme using the idea of "unequal protection" is proposed to improve video transmission quality of MANETs. Priorities are determined by video coding algorithm and submitted to network layer and MAC layer so that packet routing and frame scheduling algorithms could forward video data according to their priorities. Proposed scheme provides coding adaptivity through priority assignment and transmission adaptivity through machine learning methods.

I. Introduction

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have attracted many research efforts over the past few years. A mobile ad hoc network is composed of several wireless mobile devices that are capable of communicating with each other in a peer-to-peer basis. The distinct feature of such a network is lack of fixed infrastructure and centralized administrative in the network. Each node acts not only as a host but also as a router, forwarding packets on behave of other nodes that are out of the direct radio range of their destinations. The self-organized and self-configured nature of MANETs provides a flexible alternative in a variety of applications where the deployment of a fixed infrastructure may be impractical. Consequently, MANETs are useful in military and other tactical applications such as emergency rescue or exploration missions. Furthermore, commercial situations (i.e. conferences, course training, lectures, museum visits, city tours, e-gaming and peer-to-peer applications) are potential application fields for the requirement of ubiquitous communication.