Efficient resource utilization for multi-flow wireless transmissions

Wireless multimedia applications are major services of next generation wireless networks. This paper is one of the first to study the efficient utilization of network resources for increasing the number of concurrent multimedia flows when a channel becomes saturated. We theoretically study the flow scheduling policy with the motivation of ameliorating the trade-off between limited channel resources and multiple flow transmission. Based on the dynamic states of wireless channels and the profile of multimedia flows, the policy fully utilizes the performance gap for increasing the number of performance guaranteed multimedia flows, by scheduling multiple flows in turn without interference. We then study the policy by NS2 simulations, which prove the effectiveness of the flow scheduling policy in increasing the number of concurrent multimedia flows in both single-hop and multi-hop wireless networks.