A Multi-Channel Approach for Video Forwarding in Wireless Sensor Networks

We present a simple but effective scheme that leverages the effective packet rate in multi-hop wireless sensor networks (WSN) to forward constrained video feeds. The maximum packet rate observed in multi-hop WSN is seldom realized due to various factors. One limitation is that the implementing hardware may possess only one half-duplex radio interface. Additionally, most data forwarding schemes found in the WSNs literature employ a single radio frequency channel for their transmissions. Therefore, packet transmissions must be spaced out to avoid collisions in the wireless medium, decreasing the packet rate that can be attained. Our approach multiplexes the transmission of individual data packets through two separate paths, each of which employs a different subset of frequency channels, thus enabling packet rates closer to the maximum value. We demonstrate the practicality of our approach over commercial WSN devices to forward constrained video feeds, and conduct performance evaluations to gauge its efficiency.