Online multipath convolutional coding for real-time transmission

Most of multipath multimedia streaming proposals use Forward Error Correction (FEC) approach to protect from packet losses. However, FEC does not sustain well burst of losses even when packets from a given FEC block are spread over multiple paths. In this article, we propose an online multipath convolutional coding for real-time multipath streaming based on an on-the-fly coding scheme called Tetrys. We evaluate the benefits brought out by this coding scheme inside an existing FEC multipath load splitting proposal known as Encoded Multipath Streaming (EMS). We demonstrate that Tetrys consistently outperforms FEC in both uniform and burst losses with EMS scheme. We also propose a modification of the standard EMS algorithm that greatly improves the performance in terms of packet recovery. Finally, we analyze different spreading policies of the Tetrys redundancy traffic between available paths and observe that the longer propagation delay path should be preferably used to carry repair packets.Comment: Online multipath convolutional coding for real-time transmission (2012

Erasure Codes with a Banded Structure for Hybrid Iterative-ML Decoding

This paper presents new FEC codes for the erasure channel, LDPC-Band, that have been designed so as to optimize a hybrid iterative-Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoding. Indeed, these codes feature simultaneously a sparse parity check matrix, which allows an efficient use of iterative LDPC decoding, and a generator matrix with a band structure, which allows fast ML decoding on the erasure channel. The combination of these two decoding algorithms leads to erasure codes achieving a very good trade-off between complexity and erasure correction capability.Comment: 5 page

Enhanced Recursive Reed-Muller Erasure Decoding

Recent work have shown that Reed-Muller (RM) codes achieve the erasure channel capacity. However, this performance is obtained with maximum-likelihood decoding which can be costly for practical applications. In this paper, we propose an encoding/decoding scheme for Reed-Muller codes on the packet erasure channel based on Plotkin construction. We present several improvements over the generic decoding. They allow, for a light cost, to compete with maximum-likelihood decoding performance, especially on high-rate codes, while significantly outperforming it in terms of speed

Enabling Realistic Cross-Layer Analysis based on Satellite Physical Layer Traces

We present a solution to evaluate the performance of transport protocols as a function of link layer reliability schemes (i.e. ARQ, FEC and Hybrid ARQ) applied to satellite physical layer traces. As modelling such traces is complex and may require approximations, the use of real traces will minimise the potential for erroneous performance evaluations resulting from imperfect models. Our Trace Manager Tool (TMT) produces the corresponding link layer output, which is then used within the ns-2 network simulator via the additionally developed ns-2 interface module. We first present the analytical models for the link layer with bursty erasure packets and for the link layer reliability mechanisms with bursty erasures. Then, we present details of the TMT tool and our validation methodology, demonstrating that the selected performance metrics (recovery delay and throughput efficiency) exhibit a good match between the theoretical results and those obtained with TMT. Finally, we present results showing the impact of different link layer reliability mechanisms on the performance of TCP Cubic transport layer protocol.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures and 1 table. Submitted at PIMRC 201

Physical Channel Access (PCA): Time and Frequency Access Methods Emulation in NS-2

We present an NS-2 module, Physical Channel Access (PCA), to simulate different access methods on a link shared with Multi-Frequency Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA). This tech- nique is widely used in various network technologies, such as satellite communication. In this context, different access methods at the gateway induce different queuing delays and available capacities, which strongly impact transport layer performance. Depending on QoS requirements, design of new congestion and flow control mechanisms and/or access methods requires evaluation through simulations. PCA module emulates the delays that packets will experience using the shared link, based on descriptive parameters of lower layers characteris- tics. Though PCA has been developed with DVB-RCS2 considerations in mind (for which we present a use case), other MF-TDMA-based appli- cations can easily be simulated by adapting input parameters. Moreover, the presented implementation details highlight the main methods that might need modifications to implement more specific functionality or emulate other similar access methods (e.g., OFDMA)

On-the-fly erasure coding for real-time video applications

This paper introduces a robust point-to-point transmission scheme: Tetrys, that relies on a novel on-the-fly erasure coding concept which reduces the delay for recovering lost data at the receiver side. In current erasure coding schemes, the packets that are not rebuilt at the receiver side are either lost or delayed by at least one RTT before transmission to the application. The present contribution aims at demonstrating that Tetrys coding scheme can fill the gap between real-time applications requirements and full reliability. Indeed, we show that in several cases, Tetrys can recover lost packets below one RTT over lossy and best-effort networks. We also show that Tetrys allows to enable full reliability without delay compromise and as a result: significantly improves the performance of time constrained applications. For instance, our evaluations present that video-conferencing applications obtain a PSNR gain up to 7dB compared to classic block-based erasure codes