Distributed link-aware rate allocation for R-D optimal multiple video streaming over wireless networks

When multiple video streams are delivered in wireless networks, careful rate allocation is desirable to share the available bandwidth without overflowing the whole network or any individual link, as well as to maximize the total received quality among the competing streams. This paper presents a distributed rate allocation for Rate Distortion (R-D) optimal multiple video streaming in a video- and link-aware fashion. We take into account video R-D characteristics, as well as network and link congestion in the optimization framework, to strive for the minimal total video distortion of all participating streams while limiting network and individual link channel time utilization. Initial Start scheme addresses the initialization problem for video streaming effectively, and Fast Recovery scheme eliminates network and any individual link congestion as fast as possible. Global optimal rates can be obtained in a distributed manner. Results from numerical experiments confirm excellent performance of this distributed rate allocation.