Exploiting the power of multiplicity: a holistic survey of network-layer multipath

The Internet is inherently a multipath network: For an underlying network with only a single path, connecting various nodes would have been debilitatingly fragile. Unfortunately, traditional Internet technologies have been designed around the restrictive assumption of a single working path between a source and a destination. The lack of native multipath support constrains network performance even as the underlying network is richly connected and has redundant multiple paths. Computer networks can exploit the power of multiplicity, through which a diverse collection of paths is resource pooled as a single resource, to unlock the inherent redundancy of the Internet. This opens up a new vista of opportunities, promising increased throughput (through concurrent usage of multiple paths) and increased reliability and fault tolerance (through the use of multiple paths in backup/redundant arrangements). There are many emerging trends in networking that signify that the Internet's future will be multipath, including the use of multipath technology in data center computing; the ready availability of multiple heterogeneous radio interfaces in wireless (such as Wi-Fi and cellular) in wireless devices; ubiquity of mobile devices that are multihomed with heterogeneous access networks; and the development and standardization of multipath transport protocols such as multipath TCP. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive survey of the literature on network-layer multipath solutions. We will present a detailed investigation of two important design issues, namely, the control plane problem of how to compute and select the routes and the data plane problem of how to split the flow on the computed paths. The main contribution of this paper is a systematic articulation of the main design issues in network-layer multipath routing along with a broad-ranging survey of the vast literature on network-layer multipathing. We also highlight open issues and identify directions for future work

Flow Allocation for Maximum Throughput and Bounded Delay on Multiple Disjoint Paths for Random Access Wireless Multihop Networks

In this paper, we consider random access, wireless, multi-hop networks, with multi-packet reception capabilities, where multiple flows are forwarded to the gateways through node disjoint paths. We explore the issue of allocating flow on multiple paths, exhibiting both intra- and inter-path interference, in order to maximize average aggregate flow throughput (AAT) and also provide bounded packet delay. A distributed flow allocation scheme is proposed where allocation of flow on paths is formulated as an optimization problem. Through an illustrative topology it is shown that the corresponding problem is non-convex. Furthermore, a simple, but accurate model is employed for the average aggregate throughput achieved by all flows, that captures both intra- and inter-path interference through the SINR model. The proposed scheme is evaluated through Ns2 simulations of several random wireless scenarios. Simulation results reveal that, the model employed, accurately captures the AAT observed in the simulated scenarios, even when the assumption of saturated queues is removed. Simulation results also show that the proposed scheme achieves significantly higher AAT, for the vast majority of the wireless scenarios explored, than the following flow allocation schemes: one that assigns flows on paths on a round-robin fashion, one that optimally utilizes the best path only, and another one that assigns the maximum possible flow on each path. Finally, a variant of the proposed scheme is explored, where interference for each link is approximated by considering its dominant interfering nodes only.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technolog

A Survey of multimedia streaming in wireless sensor networks: progress, issues and design challenges

Advancements in Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology have enabled Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to gather, process and transport multimedia (MM) data as well and not just limited to handling ordinary scalar data anymore. This new generation of WSN type is called Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs). Better and yet relatively cheaper sensors that are able to sense both scalar data and multimedia data with more advanced functionalities such as being able to handle rather intense computations easily have sprung up. In this paper, the applications, architectures, challenges and issues faced in the design of WMSNs are explored. Security and privacy issues, over all requirements, proposed and implemented solutions so far, some of the successful achievements and other related works in the field are also highlighted. Open research areas are pointed out and a few solution suggestions to the still persistent problems are made, which, to the best of my knowledge, so far have not been explored yet

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

Cross-layer signalling and middleware: a survey for inelastic soft real-time applications in MANETs

This paper provides a review of the different cross-layer design and protocol tuning approaches that may be used to meet a growing need to support inelastic soft real-time streams in MANETs. These streams are characterised by critical timing and throughput requirements and low packet loss tolerance levels. Many cross-layer approaches exist either for provision of QoS to soft real-time streams in static wireless networks or to improve the performance of real and non-real-time transmissions in MANETs. The common ground and lessons learned from these approaches, with a view to the potential provision of much needed support to real-time applications in MANETs, is therefore discussed

A Survey on Multimedia-Based Cross-Layer Optimization in Visual Sensor Networks

Visual sensor networks (VSNs) comprised of battery-operated electronic devices endowed with low-resolution cameras have expanded the applicability of a series of monitoring applications. Those types of sensors are interconnected by ad hoc error-prone wireless links, imposing stringent restrictions on available bandwidth, end-to-end delay and packet error rates. In such context, multimedia coding is required for data compression and error-resilience, also ensuring energy preservation over the path(s) toward the sink and improving the end-to-end perceptual quality of the received media. Cross-layer optimization may enhance the expected efficiency of VSNs applications, disrupting the conventional information flow of the protocol layers. When the inner characteristics of the multimedia coding techniques are exploited by cross-layer protocols and architectures, higher efficiency may be obtained in visual sensor networks. This paper surveys recent research on multimedia-based cross-layer optimization, presenting the proposed strategies and mechanisms for transmission rate adjustment, congestion control, multipath selection, energy preservation and error recovery. We note that many multimedia-based cross-layer optimization solutions have been proposed in recent years, each one bringing a wealth of contributions to visual sensor networks