An Adaptive Cross-Layer Mechanism of Multi-channel Multi-interface Wireless Networks for Real-Time Video Streaming

Real-time video streaming over wireless links imposes strong demands on video codecs and quality of networks. Many measures are made to design proper routing protocols and channel assignments (CAs) for multi-channel multi-interface (MCMI) wireless networks, since it can provide higher performance than single channel. However, there still has not been a well-studied proposal to guarantee real-time video quality in this situation. Hence, it motivates us to explore the potential synergies of exchanging information between different layers to support real-time video streaming over MCMI wireless networks. In this article we jointly consider three layers of the protocol stack: the application, data link and physical layers, and propose an adaptive cross-layer mechanism for real-time video streaming (ACMRV) used in this scenario, which includes both an efficient CA and an adaptive FEC mechanism. We analyze the performance of the proposed architecture and extensively evaluate it via NS-2. The results show that the real-time video quality can be greatly improved by our proposal.