Quality-Driven Cross-Layer Protocols for Video Streaming over Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

The emerging vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) offer a variety of applications and new potential markets related to safety, convenience and entertainment, however, they suffer from a number of challenges not shared so deeply by other types of existing networks, particularly, in terms of mobility of nodes, and end-to-end quality of service (QoS) provision. Although several existing works in the literature have attempted to provide efficient protocols at different layers targeted mostly for safety applications, there remain many barriers to be overcome in order to constrain the widespread use of such networks for non-safety applications, specifically, for video streaming: 1) impact of high speed mobility of nodes on end-to-end QoS provision; 2) cross-layer protocol design while keeping low computational complexity; 3) considering customer-oriented QoS metrics in the design of protocols; and 4) maintaining seamless single-hop and multi-hop connection between the destination vehicle and the road side unit (RSU) while network is moving. This thesis addresses each of the above limitations in design of cross-layer protocols for video streaming application. 1) An adaptive MAC retransmission limit selection scheme is proposed to improve the performance of IEEE 802.11p standard MAC protocol for video streaming applications over VANETs. A multi-objective optimization framework, which jointly minimizes the probability of playback freezes and start-up delay of the streamed video at the destination vehicle by tuning the MAC retransmission limit with respect to channel statistics as well as packet transmission rate, is applied at road side unit (RSU). Two-hop transmission is applied in zones in which the destination vehicle is not within the transmission range of any RSU. In the multi-hop scenario, we discuss the computation of access probability used in the MAC adaptation scheme and propose a cross-layer path selection scheme; 2) We take advantage of similarity between multi-hop urban VANETs in dense traffic conditions and mesh connected networks. First, we investigate an application-centric routing scheme for video streaming over mesh connected overlays. Next, we introduce the challenges of urban VANETs compared to mesh networks and extend the proposed scheme in mesh network into a protocol for urban VANETs. A classification-based method is proposed to select an optimal path for video streaming over multi-hop mesh networks. The novelty is to translate the path selection over multi-hop networks to a standard classification problem. The classification is based on minimizing average video packet distortion at the receiving nodes. The classifiers are trained offline using a vast collection of video sequences and wireless channel conditions in order to yield optimal performance during real time path selection. Our method substantially reduces the complexity of conventional exhaustive optimization methods and results in high quality (low distortion). Next, we propose an application-centric routing scheme for real-time video transmission over urban multi-hop vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) scenarios. Queuing based mobility model, spatial traffic distribution and prob- ability of connectivity for sparse and dense VANET scenarios are taken into consideration in designing the routing protocol. Numerical results demonstrate the gain achieved by the proposed routing scheme versus geographic greedy forwarding in terms of video frame distortion and streaming start-up delay in several urban communication scenarios for various vehicle entrance rate and traffic densities; and 3) finally, the proposed quality-driven routing scheme for delivering video streams is combined with a novel IP management scheme. The routing scheme aims to optimize the visual quality of the transmitted video frames by minimizing the distortion, the start-up delay, and the frequency of the streaming freezes. As the destination vehicle is in motion, it is unrealistic to assume that the vehicle will remain connected to the same access router (AR) for the whole trip. Mobile IP management schemes can benefit from the proposed multi-hop routing protocol in order to adapt proxy mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) for multi-hop VANET for video streaming applications. The proposed cross-layer protocols can significantly improve the video streaming quality in terms of the number of streaming freezes and start-up delay over VANETs while achieving low computational complexity by using pattern classification methods for optimization

Design and analysis of a beacon-less routing protocol for large volume content dissemination in vehicular ad hoc networks

Largevolumecontentdisseminationispursuedbythegrowingnumberofhighquality applications for Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks(VANETs), e.g., the live road surveillance service and the video-based overtaking assistant service. For the highly dynamical vehicular network topology, beacon-less routing protocols have been proven to be efficient in achieving a balance between the system performance and the control overhead. However, to the authors’ best knowledge, the routing design for large volume content has not been well considered in the previous work, which will introduce new challenges, e.g., the enhanced connectivity requirement for a radio link. In this paper, a link Lifetime-aware Beacon-less Routing Protocol (LBRP) is designed for large volume content delivery in VANETs. Each vehicle makes the forwarding decision based on the message header information and its current state, including the speed and position information. A semi-Markov process analytical model is proposed to evaluate the expected delay in constructing one routing path for LBRP. Simulations show that the proposed LBRP scheme outperforms the traditional dissemination protocols in providing a low end-to-end delay. The analytical model is shown to exhibit a good match on the delay estimation with Monte Carlo simulations, as well

An altruistic cross-layer recovering mechanism for ad hoc wireless networks

Video streaming services have restrictive delay and bandwidth constraints. Ad hoc networks represent a hostile environment for this kind of real-time data transmission. Emerging mesh networks, where a backbone provides more topological stability, do not even assure a high quality of experience. In such scenario, mobility of terminal nodes causes link breakages until a new route is calculated. In the meanwhile, lost packets cause annoying video interruptions to the receiver. This paper proposes a new mechanism of recovering lost packets by means of caching overheard packets in neighbor nodes and retransmit them to destination. Moreover, an optimization is shown, which involves a video-aware cache in order to recover full frames and prioritize more significant frames. Results show the improvement in reception, increasing the throughput as well as video quality, whereas larger video interruptions are considerably reduced. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Arce Vila, P.; Guerri Cebollada, JC. (2015). An altruistic cross-layer recovering mechanism for ad hoc wireless networks. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing. 15(13):1744-1758. doi:10.1002/wcm.2459S174417581513Li J Blake C De Couto DSJ Lee HI Morris R Capacity of ad hoc wireless networks Proceedings of the 7th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networks (MobiCom) 2001 61 69Akyildiz, I. F., & Xudong Wang. (2005). A survey on wireless mesh networks. IEEE Communications Magazine, 43(9), S23-S30. doi:10.1109/mcom.2005.1509968Hsu, C.-J., Liu, H.-I., & Seah, W. K. G. (2011). Opportunistic routing – A review and the challenges ahead. Computer Networks, 55(15), 3592-3603. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2011.06.021Huang, X., Zhai, H., & Fang, Y. (2008). Robust cooperative routing protocol in mobile wireless sensor networks. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 7(12), 5278-5285. doi:10.1109/t-wc.2008.060680Wieselthier, J. E., Nguyen, G. D., & Ephremides, A. (2001). Mobile Networks and Applications, 6(3), 251-263. doi:10.1023/a:1011478717164Clausen T Jacquet P Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR), IETF RFC 3626 2003 http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3626.txtMarina, M. K., & Das, S. R. (2006). Ad hoc on-demand multipath distance vector routing. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 6(7), 969-988. doi:10.1002/wcm.432Zhou X Lu Y Ma HG Routing improvement using multiple disjoint paths for ad hoc networks International Conference on Wireless and Optical Communications Networks (IFIP) 2006 1 5Fujisawa H Minami H Yamamoto M Izumi Y Fujita Y Route selection using retransmission packets for video streaming on ad hoc networks IEEE Conference on Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2006 607 610Badis H Agha KA QOLSR multi-path routing for mobile ad hoc networks based on multiple metrics: bandwidth and delay IEEE 59th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC) 2004 2181 2184Wu Z Wu J Cross-layer routing optimization for video transmission over wireless ad hoc networks 6th International Conference on Wireless Communications Networks and Mobile Computing (WiCOM) 2010 1 6Schier, M., & Welzl, M. (2012). Optimizing Selective ARQ for H.264 Live Streaming: A Novel Method for Predicting Loss-Impact in Real Time. 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A seamless handoff scheme for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 13(2), 157-169. doi:10.1002/wcm.1102Liangzhong Yin, & Guohong Cao. (2006). Supporting cooperative caching in ad hoc networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 5(1), 77-89. doi:10.1109/tmc.2006.15Biswas S Morris R ExOR: opportunistic multi-hop routing for wireless networks Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM 2005 133 144Chachulski S Jennings M Katti S Katabi D Trading structure for randomness in wireless opportunistic routing Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM 2007 169 180Kohler E Handley M Floyd S Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP), IETF RFC 4340 2006 http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4340.txtSchierl, T., Ganger, K., Hellge, C., Wiegand, T., & Stockhammer, T. (2006). SVC-based multisource streaming for robust video transmission in mobile ad hoc networks. IEEE Wireless Communications, 13(5), 96-103. doi:10.1109/wc-m.2006.250365Iera, A., Molinaro, A., Paratore, S. Y., Ruggeri, G., & Zurzolo, A. (2011). Making a mesh router/gateway from a smartphone: Is that a practical solution? Ad Hoc Networks, 9(8), 1414-1429. doi:10.1016/j.adhoc.2011.03.00

Towards video streaming in IoT environments: vehicular communication perspective

Multimedia oriented Internet of Things (IoT) enables pervasive and real-time communication of video, audio and image data among devices in an immediate surroundings. Today's vehicles have the capability of supporting real time multimedia acquisition. Vehicles with high illuminating infrared cameras and customized sensors can communicate with other on-road devices using dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) and 5G enabled communication technologies. Real time incidence of both urban and highway vehicular traffic environment can be captured and transmitted using vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication modes. Video streaming in vehicular IoT (VSV-IoT) environments is in growing stage with several challenges that need to be addressed ranging from limited resources in IoT devices, intermittent connection in vehicular networks, heterogeneous devices, dynamism and scalability in video encoding, bandwidth underutilization in video delivery, and attaining application-precise quality of service in video streaming. In this context, this paper presents a comprehensive review on video streaming in IoT environments focusing on vehicular communication perspective. Specifically, significance of video streaming in vehicular IoT environments is highlighted focusing on integration of vehicular communication with 5G enabled IoT technologies, and smart city oriented application areas for VSV-IoT. A taxonomy is presented for the classification of related literature on video streaming in vehicular network environments. Following the taxonomy, critical review of literature is performed focusing on major functional model, strengths and weaknesses. Metrics for video streaming in vehicular IoT environments are derived and comparatively analyzed in terms of their usage and evaluation capabilities. Open research challenges in VSV-IoT are identified as future directions of research in the area. The survey would benefit both IoT and vehicle industry practitioners and researchers, in terms of augmenting understanding of vehicular video streaming and its IoT related trends and issues

Video Streaming over Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks: A Comparative Study and Future Perspectives

Vehicular  Ad Hoc Network  (VANET) is emerged as an important research area that provides ubiquitous short-range connectivity among moving vehicles.  This network enables efficient traffic safety and infotainment applications. One of the promising applications is video transmission in vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure environments.  But, video streaming over vehicular environment is a daunting task due to high movement of vehicles. This paper presents a survey on state-of-arts of video streaming over VANET. Furthermore, taxonomy of vehicular video transmission is highlighted in this paper with special focus on significant applications and their requirements with challenges, video content sharing, multi-source video streaming and video broadcast services. The comparative study of the paper compares the video streaming schemes based on type of error resilient technique, objective of study, summary of their study, the utilized simulator and the type of video sharing.  Lastly, we discussed the open issues and research directions related to video communication over VANET

Survey on QoE/QoS Correlation Models for Video Streaming over Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are a new emerging technology which has attracted enormous interest over the last few years. It enables vehicles to communicate with each other and with roadside infrastructures for many applications. One of the promising applications is multimedia services for traffic safety or infotainment. The video service requires a good quality to satisfy the end-user known as the Quality of Experience (QoE). Several models have been suggested in the literature to measure or predict this metric. In this paper, we present an overview of interesting researches, which propose QoE models for video streaming over VANETs. The limits and deficiencies of these models are identified, which shed light on the challenges and real problems to overcome in the future

VANETs Multipath Video Data Streaming Considering Road Features

Multipath video streaming in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) is an evolving research topic. The adoption of video transmission in VANETs communication has become essential due to the comprehensiveness and applicability of video data for on-road advertisement and infotainment. Meanwhile, several research studies have considered how to apply and improve the transmission of the video quality. Due to this, the concurrent multipath transmission has been employed in order to achieve load balancing and path diversity, because of the high data rate of the video data.  However, the main nature of the road, which is the pathway for VANET nodes has not been considered explicitly. In this paper, the road features are considered for VANETs multipath video streaming based on the greedy geographical routing protocol. Thus, VANETs Multipath Video Streaming based on Road Features (VMVS-RF) protocol has been proposed. The protocol was compared with an ordinary Multipath Video Streaming (MVS). The result demonstrates that the proposed VMVS-RF protocol outperforms the MVS in terms of Data Receiving Rate (DRR), Structural Similarity (SSIM) index and Packet Loss Ratio (PLR)

Cognitive radio network in vehicular ad hoc network (VANET): a survey

Cognitive radio network and vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) are recent emerging concepts in wireless networking. Cognitive radio network obtains knowledge of its operational geographical environment to manage sharing of spectrum between primary and secondary users, while VANET shares emergency safety messages among vehicles to ensure safety of users on the road. Cognitive radio network is employed in VANET to ensure the efficient use of spectrum, as well as to support VANET’s deployment. Random increase and decrease of spectrum users, unpredictable nature of VANET, high mobility, varying interference, security, packet scheduling, and priority assignment are the challenges encountered in a typical cognitive VANET environment. This paper provides survey and critical analysis on different challenges of cognitive radio VANET, with discussion on the open issues, challenges, and performance metrics for different cognitive radio VANET applications