Video-streaming Transmission with QoS over Cross-Layered Ad hoc Networks

End-to-end quality of service (QoS) provision to video-streaming applications over mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) poses a specially challenging problem. In this paper we propose a cross-layer (XL) network architecture design to optimize the overall performance of video-streaming services over MANETs, called ViStA-XL. The idea relies on applying several optimization strategies to different network layers in a holistic way. In our proposal, a real-time XL optimizer (XLO) collects information about the node and network states from different layers of the network´s protocol stack. Then, in order to minimize the error between received and transmitted video, the XLO module takes the necessary decisions to act dynamically over different layers´ parameters. In addition, our proposal exploits path diversity as a mean to reinforce QoS provision to layered-coded video-streaming applications, by protecting the most important video information packets. To show the advantages of our approach, we have developed an algorithm based on ViStA-XL. Simulation results show that our proposed network design can improve the performance of video-streaming transmissions over MANETs in spite of frequent changes in network topology and node´s conditions