Reliable transmission of video over ad-hoc networks using automatic repeat request and multipath transport

Abstract

The increase in the bandwidth of the wireless channels and the computing power of the mobile devices makes it possible to offer video service for wireless networks in the near future. In an ad-hoc network, strong error protection is required because of the lack of a fixed infrastructure. On the other hand, the mesh structure of an ad-hoc network implies that there may be multiple paths existing between a source and destination, which can be used to enhance video transmissions. We propose a simple but robust scheme for reliable transmission of video in bandwidth limited ad-hoc networks. In our scheme, a video stream is layer coded. The base layer (BL) packets and the enhancement layer (EL) packets are transmitted separately on two disjoint paths using multipath transport (MPT). BL packets are protected by automatic repeat request (ARQ), and a lost BL packet is retransmitted through the path where EL packets are transmitted. An EL packet has lower priority than a retransmitted BL packet and may be dropped at the sender when congestion occurs. Simulation results show that this scheme can guarantee a graceful video quality in adverse channel conditions. It is effective for video transmission over the high loss environment found in ad-hoc networks.