Multipath streaming: fundamental limits and efficient algorithms

We investigate streaming over multiple links. A file is split into small units called chunks that may be requested on the various links according to some policy, and received after some random delay. After a start-up time called pre-buffering time, received chunks are played at a fixed speed. There is starvation if the chunk to be played has not yet arrived. We provide lower bounds (fundamental limits) on the starvation probability of any policy. We further propose simple, order-optimal policies that require no feedback. For general delay distributions, we provide tractable upper bounds for the starvation probability of the proposed policies, allowing to select the pre-buffering time appropriately. We specialize our results to: (i) links that employ CSMA or opportunistic scheduling at the packet level, (ii) links shared with a primary user (iii) links that use fair rate sharing at the flow level. We consider a generic model so that our results give insight into the design and performance of media streaming over (a) wired networks with several paths between the source and destination, (b) wireless networks featuring spectrum aggregation and (c) multi-homed wireless networks.Comment: 24 page

Data sharing in secure multimedia wireless sensor networks

© 2016 IEEE. The use of Multimedia Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs) is becoming common nowadays with a rapid growth in communication facilities. Similar to any other WSNs, these networks face various challenges while providing security, trust and privacy for user data. Provisioning of the aforementioned services become an uphill task especially while dealing with real-time streaming data. These networks operates with resource-constrained sensor nodes for days, months and even years depending on the nature of an application. The resource-constrained nature of these networks makes it difficult for the nodes to tackle real-time data in mission-critical applications such as military surveillance, forest fire monitoring, health-care and industrial automation. For a secured MWSN, the transmission and processing of streaming data needs to be explored deeply. The conventional data authentication schemes are not suitable for MWSNs due to the limitations imposed on sensor nodes in terms of battery power, computation, available bandwidth and storage. In this paper, we propose a novel quality-driven clustering-based technique for authenticating streaming data in MWSNs. Nodes with maximum energy are selected as Cluster Heads (CHs). The CHs collect data from member nodes and forward it to the Base Station (BS), thus preventing member nodes with low energy from dying soon and increasing life span of the underlying network. The proposed approach not only authenticates the streaming data but also maintains the quality of transmitted data. The proposed data authentication scheme coupled with an Error Concealment technique provides an energy-efficient and distortion-free real-time data streaming. The proposed scheme is compared with an unsupervised resources scenario. The simulation results demonstrate better network lifetime along with 21.34 dB gain in Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of received video data streams

LTE Optimization and Resource Management in Wireless Heterogeneous Networks

Mobile communication technology is evolving with a great pace. The development of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile system by 3GPP is one of the milestones in this direction. This work highlights a few areas in the LTE radio access network where the proposed innovative mechanisms can substantially improve overall LTE system performance. In order to further extend the capacity of LTE networks, an integration with the non-3GPP networks (e.g., WLAN, WiMAX etc.) is also proposed in this work. Moreover, it is discussed how bandwidth resources should be managed in such heterogeneous networks. The work has purposed a comprehensive system architecture as an overlay of the 3GPP defined SAE architecture, effective resource management mechanisms as well as a Linear Programming based analytical solution for the optimal network resource allocation problem. In addition, alternative computationally efficient heuristic based algorithms have also been designed to achieve near-optimal performance