E-Mesh: An energy-efficient cross-layer solution for video delivery in wireless mesh networks

Devices in wireless mesh networks are often supplied with limited power resources, while also running complex applications with high energy requirements, such as high quality video deliveries over the network. Reducing energy consumption is a key factor when designing a solution for such scenarios. Some existing energy-aware video delivery solutions have been proposed for sensor networks, but they do not consider possible movement of devices and most of them are deployed at one network layer only. This paper presents E-Mesh, an energy-aware cross-layer solution for high quality multimedia deliveries over wireless mesh networks. The core idea of E-Mesh is to save energy at mesh network devices by managing their sleep-periods in a more smart way, while also trying to maintain high multimedia delivery quality. E-Mesh includes an innovative MAC-layer scheme for mesh device sleep period management and an energy-aware extension of the Optimized Link State Routing algorithm (OLSR). Network Simulator 3 (NS-3) simulation results show how important energy savings are obtained by using E-Mesh in comparison with the case when IEEE 802.11s mesh standard is employed, while maintaining good video quality levels.