1,513 research outputs found
Multi-user video streaming using unequal error protection network coding in wireless networks
In this paper, we investigate a multi-user video streaming system applying unequal error protection (UEP) network coding (NC) for simultaneous real-time exchange of scalable video streams among multiple users. We focus on a simple wireless scenario where users exchange encoded data packets over a common central network node (e.g., a base station or an access point) that aims to capture the fundamental system behaviour. Our goal is to present analytical tools that provide both the decoding probability analysis and the expected delay guarantees for different importance layers of scalable video streams. Using the proposed tools, we offer a simple framework for design and analysis of UEP NC based multi-user video streaming systems and provide examples of system design for video conferencing scenario in broadband wireless cellular networks
Random Linear Network Coding for Wireless Layered Video Broadcast: General Design Methods for Adaptive Feedback-free Transmission
This paper studies the problem of broadcasting layered video streams over
heterogeneous single-hop wireless networks using feedback-free random linear
network coding (RLNC). We combine RLNC with unequal error protection (UEP) and
our main purpose is twofold. First, to systematically investigate the benefits
of UEP+RLNC layered approach in servicing users with different reception
capabilities. Second, to study the effect of not using feedback, by comparing
feedback-free schemes with idealistic full-feedback schemes. To these ends, we
study `expected percentage of decoded frames' as a key content-independent
performance metric and propose a general framework for calculation of this
metric, which can highlight the effect of key system, video and channel
parameters. We study the effect of number of layers and propose a scheme that
selects the optimum number of layers adaptively to achieve the highest
performance. Assessing the proposed schemes with real H.264 test streams, the
trade-offs among the users' performances are discussed and the gain of adaptive
selection of number of layers to improve the trade-offs is shown. Furthermore,
it is observed that the performance gap between the proposed feedback-free
scheme and the idealistic scheme is very small and the adaptive selection of
number of video layers further closes the gap.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, Under 2nd round of review, IEEE
Transactions on Communication
Network coding meets multimedia: a review
While every network node only relays messages in a traditional communication system, the recent network coding (NC) paradigm proposes to implement simple in-network processing with packet combinations in the nodes. NC extends the concept of "encoding" a message beyond source coding (for compression) and channel coding (for protection against errors and losses). It has been shown to increase network throughput compared to traditional networks implementation, to reduce delay and to provide robustness to transmission errors and network dynamics. These features are so appealing for multimedia applications that they have spurred a large research effort towards the development of multimedia-specific NC techniques. This paper reviews the recent work in NC for multimedia applications and focuses on the techniques that fill the gap between NC theory and practical applications. It outlines the benefits of NC and presents the open challenges in this area. The paper initially focuses on multimedia-specific aspects of network coding, in particular delay, in-network error control, and mediaspecific error control. These aspects permit to handle varying network conditions as well as client heterogeneity, which are critical to the design and deployment of multimedia systems. After introducing these general concepts, the paper reviews in detail two applications that lend themselves naturally to NC via the cooperation and broadcast models, namely peer-to-peer multimedia streaming and wireless networkin
Optimizing Network Coding Algorithms for Multiple Applications.
Deviating from the archaic communication approach of treating information as a fluid moving through pipes, the concepts of Network Coding (NC) suggest that optimal throughput of a multicast network can be achieved by processing information at individual network nodes. However, existing challenges to harness the advantages of NC concepts for practical applications have prevented the development of NC into an effective solution to increase the performance of practical communication networks. In response, the research work presented in this thesis proposes cross-layer NC solutions to increase the network throughput of data multicast as well as video quality of video multicast applications. First, three algorithms are presented to improve the throughput of NC enabled networks by minimizing the NC coefficient vector overhead, optimizing the NC redundancy allocation and improving the robustness of NC against bursty packet losses. Considering the fact that majority of network traffic occupies video, rest of the proposed NC algorithms are content-aware and are optimized for both data and video multicast applications. A set of content and network-aware optimization algorithms, which allocate redundancies for NC considering content properties as well as the network status, are proposed to efficiently multicast data and video across content delivery networks. Furthermore content and channel-aware joint channel and network coding algorithms are proposed to efficiently multicast data and video across wireless networks. Finally, the possibilities of performing joint source and network coding are explored to increase the robustness of high volume video multicast applications. Extensive simulation studies indicate significant improvements with the proposed algorithms to increase the network throughput and video quality over related state-of-the-art solutions. Hence, it is envisaged that the proposed algorithms will contribute to the advancement of data and video multicast protocols in the future communication networks
Speeding Multicast by Acknowledgment Reduction Technique (SMART)
We present a novel feedback protocol for wireless broadcast networks that
utilize linear network coding. We consider transmission of packets from one
source to many receivers over a single-hop broadcast erasure channel. Our
method utilizes a predictive model to request feedback only when the
probability that all receivers have completed decoding is significant. In
addition, our proposed NACK-based feedback mechanism enables all receivers to
request, within a single time slot, the number of retransmissions needed for
successful decoding. We present simulation results as well as analytical
results that show the favorable scalability of our technique as the number of
receivers, file size, and packet erasure probability increase. We also show the
robustness of this scheme to uncertainty in the predictive model, including
uncertainty in the number of receiving nodes and the packet erasure
probability, as well as to losses of the feedback itself. Our scheme, SMART, is
shown to perform nearly as well as an omniscient transmitter that requires no
feedback. Furthermore, SMART, is shown to outperform current state of the art
methods at any given erasure probability, file size, and numbers of receivers
One Video Stream to Serve Diverse Receivers
The fundamental problem of wireless video multicast is to scalably serve multiple receivers which may have very different channel characteristics. Ideally, one would like to broadcast a single stream that allows each receiver to benefit from all correctly received bits to improve its video quality. We introduce Digital Rain, a new approach to wireless video multicast that adapts to channel characteristics without any need for receiver feedback or variable codec rates. Users that capture more packets or have fewer bit errors naturally see higher video quality. Digital Rain departs from current approaches in two ways: 1) It allows a receiver to exploit video packets that may contain bit errors; 2) It builds on the theory of compressed sensing to develop robust video encoding and decoding algorithms that degrade smoothly with bit errors and packet loss. Implementation results from an indoor wireless testbed show that Digital Rain significantly improves the received video quality and the number of supported receivers
Network coding for reliable wireless sensor networks
Wireless sensor networks are used in many applications and are now a key element
in the increasingly growing Internet of Things. These networks are composed of
small nodes including wireless communication modules, and in most of the cases
are able to autonomously con gure themselves into networks, to ensure sensed data
delivery. As more and more sensor nodes and networks join the Internet of Things,
collaboration between geographically distributed systems are expected. Peer to peer
overlay networks can assist in the federation of these systems, for them to collaborate.
Since participating peers/proxies contribute to storage and processing, there is no
burden on speci c servers and bandwidth bottlenecks are avoided.
Network coding can be used to improve the performance of wireless sensor networks.
The idea is for data from multiple links to be combined at intermediate encoding
nodes, before further transmission. This technique proved to have a lot of potential
in a wide range of applications. In the particular case of sensor networks, network
coding based protocols and algorithms try to achieve a balance between low packet
error rate and energy consumption. For network coding based constrained networks
to be federated using peer to peer overlays, it is necessary to enable the storage
of encoding vectors and coded data by such distributed storage systems. Packets
can arrive to the overlay through any gateway/proxy (peers in the overlay), and lost
packets can be recovered by the overlay (or client) using original and coded data that
has been stored. The decoding process requires a decoding service at the overlay
network. Such architecture, which is the focus of this thesis, will allow constrained
networks to reduce packet error rate in an energy e cient way, while bene ting from an e ective distributed storage solution for their federation. This will serve as
a basis for the proposal of mathematical models and algorithms that determine the
most e ective routing trees, for packet forwarding toward sink/gateway nodes, and
best amount and placement of encoding nodes.As redes de sensores sem fios são usadas em muitas aplicações e são hoje consideradas um elemento-chave para o desenvolvimento da Internet das Coisas. Compostas por nós de pequena dimensão que incorporam módulos de comunicação sem fios, grande parte destas redes possuem a capacidade de se configurarem de forma autónoma, formando sistemas em rede para garantir a entrega dos dados recolhidos. (…
Robust P2P Live Streaming
Projecte fet en col.laboració amb la Fundació i2CATThe provisioning of robust real-time communication services (voice, video, etc.) or media contents through the Internet in a distributed manner is an important challenge,
which will strongly influence in current and future Internet evolution. Aware of this, we
are developing a project named Trilogy leaded by the i2CAT Foundation, which has as
main pillar the study, development and evaluation of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Live
streaming architectures for the distribution of high-quality media contents. In this
context, this work concretely covers media coding aspects and proposes the use of
Multiple Description Coding (MDC) as a flexible solution for providing robust and
scalable live streaming over P2P networks. This work describes current state of the art
in media coding techniques and P2P streaming architectures, presents the
implemented prototype as well as its simulation and validation results
Recommended from our members
Energy Optimization for Hybrid ARQ
Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) \cite{costello1983error} plays an important role in providing reliable and efficient data transmission. In wireless communications, the wireless channel may vary fast, due to the mobility of the transmitter/receiver and the channel. Forward error correction (FEC) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) are two basic techniques to control errors. FEC employs error correction coding, by adding parity bits to the information bits, to combat channel errors. ARQ allows the receiver to request a retransmission of the packet when an error is detected in the received packet. HARQ gives protection to the wireless transmission by combining FEC and ARQ. In typical HARQ systems, redundancy is added to the information bits, and a retransmission is performed until either the packet is successfully decoded, or a maximum number of transmissions is reached.The motivation to optimize the energy consumption of HARQ is the high energy consumption of wireless communications on mobile devices. Wireless devices usually have a limited battery life, and wireless communications consume the majority of the battery energy of mobile devices. One example is that 3G and Wifi units consume more than 50\% of the energy for some smart phones \cite{tawalbeh2016studying}. Another example is that battery depletion has been identified as one of the primary factors that limit the lifetime of wireless sensor networks \cite{verdone2010wireless}.Previous works on HARQ mainly use information-theoretic approach, which assumes that the number of bits in each transmission round is sufficiently large. This assumption does not necessarily hold for actual codes with finite length. Therefore, in this dissertation, we consider HARQ with actual codes. We use turbo-coded HARQ, since turbo codes are well-known capacity-approaching codes \cite{berrou1993near} and widely used in standards such as 3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) \cite{3gpp2007mulltiplexing}. We study the energy optimization for HARQ in two scenarios: the energy optimization for incremental redundancy (IR) HARQ, and the energy optimization for HARQ in wireless video transmission. For IR HARQ, each retransmission contains additional parity bits beyond those of the previous transmissions. For the first scenario, we consider different cases of channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter: the transmitter has no knowledge of any CSI, or knows the CSI in previous transmission rounds through a perfect feedback channel, or knows both current and previous CSI. The transmitter decides the forward error correction code rate based on the CSI it has. We minimize the energy consumption of turbo-coded HARQ, subject to a packet loss rate constraint. Numerical results show that the energy consumption of HARQ decreases when more CSI information is available at the transmitter. We also compare IR combining with both Chase combining and the system without combining, and IR combining yields the least energy consumption.For the second scenario, we formulate the problem as maximizing the video quality, subject to a constraint on the wireless transmission energy consumption. We consider multiple parameters in multiple layers in a wireless video transmission system: transmit power, alphabet size, FEC code rate, maximum number of transmissions and unequal video data importance. An analytical framework is proposed to include these parameters, which allows us to divide this problem into two sub-problems: data transmission and unequal error protection (UEP) for video content. The problem is tackled by solving the two sub-problems, which are done by exhaustive search and convex optimization, respectively. Simulations of different videos show that the proposed scheme outperforms methods using conventional data transmission and/or unequal error protection. For example, in the low SNR region, there is a total gain of 4.8 to 5.6dB on the peak signal-to-noise ratio of the received video compared to video transmission using conventional HARQ without any video UEP
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