Multi-path Scheduling Algorithm for Real-Time Video Applications in Next-Generation Wireless Networks

In wireless mobile networks, ensuring quality of service (QoS) for real-time video applications is a challenge due to resource limitations. Nowadays, such a problem can be alleviated by exploiting the features of mobile computers equipped with multiple wireless interfaces, which can be used simultaneously for transmission/reception of data belonging to a single application. This increases the throughput but is tied to the packets reordering issue. This paper proposes a scheme for scheduling packets through different paths and minimizing the reordering delay at the receiver side. We consider a QoS negotiation system where active users have a specific amount of bandwidth negotiated with the network by each available interface. To allocate such negotiated bandwidth to users, the network implements a time slot division- based strategy. A new scheduling mechanism is developed by taking into consideration such QoS system. Its performance is evaluated and compared against the most popular scheduling schemes via simulations. The results show that our algorithm outperforms the former scheduling algorithms.