QoS-Aware Dynamic Adaptation for Cooperative Media Streaming in Mobile Environments

Media streaming is expected to be one of the most promising services in mobile environments. Effective data streaming management techniques are, therefore, in strong demand. In an earlier paper, the ideas and benefits of two-level cooperative media streaming with headlight prefetching and dynamic chaining were demonstrated. Though complementary to each other, they operate in session-wide static and distinctive modes. Moreover, users do not have control over the quality and cost levels of the streaming services. The performance degradation or cost increment can reach an unacceptable level under fast or highly unstable moving patterns. In this paper, we propose the QoS-based dynamic adaptation techniques for the flexible employment and smooth integration of headlight prefetching and dynamic chaining to continuously provide quality streaming services to mobile users. The QoS-aware dynamic headlight prefetching is for the cooperation between streaming access points to dynamically adjust the prefetching scheme in response to the fast changing moving patterns. Adaptive P2P media streaming is for the cooperation between mobile users such that multiple peers can be used as streaming sources to increase the likelihood of successful chaining. Furthermore, a QoS-based technique is developed to dynamically trigger and proportionally adjust the prefetching degree when the stability and quality of P2P streaming service vary. With extensive simulation and performance evaluation, we demonstrate that the proposed dynamic adaptation techniques significantly improve the service quality and streaming performance of cooperative media streaming in mobile environments.