Distributed Reservation Algorithms for Video Streaming over UWB-Based Home Networks

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is a new wireless technology that transfers data over shorter distances with higher data rates and lower transmission power. WiMedia Alliance´s Media Access Control (MAC) protocols for UWB-based wireless personal area networks have become an international standard. The Distributed Reservation Protocol (DRP) is part of this standard that reserves the wireless channel on a slot-by-slot basis for different flows. Knowing that one of the most common use of DRP is to transport multimedia traffic, we propose distributed reservation algorithms for UWB-based home networks according to the video streaming traffic specification and quality-of-service requirement. The proposed algorithms also take the WiMedia UWB MAC policies into account. We analyze and validate the reservation algorithms and policies with a tiered overflow model, and evaluate and compare their performance with Network Simulator (NS-2) and a MPEG-4 video traffic generator. We further discuss the ways of improving video streaming quality and system resource utilization in UWB-based home networks.