Effective Power Control for Multimedia Streaming with QoS Constraints in Heterogeneous Networks

Power consumption is a critical issue in multimedia streaming over a heterogeneous network, where wired and wireless links are interoperated together. To effectively reduce power consumption in this type of networks, we propose an effective power control method that can determine the optimal transmit powers for multimedia traffic with QoS constraints. Optimal transmit power of a network node can be characterized by a cost function, which jointly takes into account the transmit power and link quality under an end-to-end frame-error constraint. Two proposed methods, namely, route-based power management and link-associated power management, are developed to solve the power cost problem. Experiments are conducted through simulation in a heterogeneous network. The results demonstrate the relative superiority and effectiveness of the link-associated approach in power saving.