Distortion-Driven Video Streaming over Multihop Wireless Networks with Path Diversity

Multihop networks provide a flexible infrastructure that is based on a mixture of existing access points and stations interconnected via wireless links. These networks present some unique challenges for video streaming applications due to the inherent infrastructure unreliability. In this paper, we address the problem of robust video streaming in multihop networks by relying on delay- constrained and distortion-aware scheduling, path diversity, and retransmission of important video packets over multiple links to maximize the received video quality at the destination node. To provide an analytical study of this streaming problem, we focus on an elementary multihop network topology that enables path diversity, which we term "elementary cell." Our analysis is considering several cross-layer parameters at the physical and medium access control (MAC) layers, as well as application-layer parameters such as the expected distortion reduction of each video packet and the packet scheduling via an overlay network infrastructure. In addition, we study the optimal deployment of path diversity in order to cope with link failures. The analysis is validated in each case by simulation results with the elementary cell topology, as well as with a larger multihop network topology. Based on the derived results, we are able to establish the benefits of using path diversity in video streaming over multihop networks, as well as to identify the cases where path diversity does not lead to performance improvements.