Energy-efficient transmission of H.264 Scalable Video over IEEE 802.11E

Achieving low energy consumption is one of the main challenges for wireless video transmission on battery-limited devices. Moreover, the bandwidth is scarce and must be shared efficiently among users. The focus in this paper is on the timely delivery of multiple delay-sensitive video flows over a distributed access wireless LAN with minimal energy cost. This is done taking into consideration the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mode and the Scalable Video Codec (SVC). In this context, a method is presented for energy-efficient resource allocation across the physical layer and medium access layer, by properly leveraging transmission modes and the available prioritization mechanisms. Global energy savings around 60% are achieved with respect to state-of-the-art EDCA under a wide range of network loads.