Opportunistic video communication over cooperative decode-forward networks

An opportunistic automatic repeat request (ARQ) scheme was developed to support high-quality video transmission over cooperative decode-forward networks. The opportunistic ARQ is implemented in the form of distributed space-time block codes (STBCs) and the desired STBC for a certain channel state is determined by the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff principle. With good channel states, the source and relay may jointly retransmit the lost video packets using high-rate low-diversity codes while with bad channel states they will retransmit the lost video packets using low-rate high-diversity codes. Furthermore, an adaptive packet dropping mechanism was introduced by considering the delay constraint and layer dependency characteristics of scalable video streaming. Test results show that the scheme significantly improves the throughput and video quality compared with other schemes. Tests also indicate that the source-relay link condition plays an important role in affecting the scheme performance.