Rate estimation-based resource allocation algorithm with minimized piggybacking overhead for video traffic over wireless networks

The major challenge in the wireless multimedia network design is selection of a suitable medium access control (MAC) protocol able to maximize the utilization of the limited wireless resources while guaranteeing the various quality of services (QoS) requirements for all traffic classes especially for of real time variable bit rate (rt-VBR) video service. In this paper a novel resource allocation algorithm for video traffic over wireless networks is proposed. Simple rate estimation is proposed to estimate the current bit rate of the variable bit rate video source using a minimized piggybacking overhead of two bits to increase the utilization efficiency. At the same time, the piggybacking overhead indicates the queue length status at each user, which enables the resource allocation algorithm, to efficiently distribute the available resources trying to reduce the packet delay time and queue length. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves very high utilization and allocation efficiency (greater than 99%) while improves QoS offered for video traffic in terms of packet delay time and packet loss probability. In addition, the fairing property of the proposed protocol in term of queue length and packet delay is investigated to show its fairing efficiency.