Video-streaming Transmission with QoS over Cross-Layered Ad hoc Networks

End-to-end quality of service (QoS) provision to video-streaming applications over mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) poses a specially challenging problem. In this paper we propose a cross-layer (XL) network architecture design to optimize the overall performance of video-streaming services over MANETs, called ViStA-XL. The idea relies on applying several optimization strategies to different network layers in a holistic way. In our proposal, a real-time XL optimizer (XLO) collects information about the node and network states from different layers of the network's protocol stack. Then, in order to minimize the error between received and transmitted video, the XLO module takes the necessary decisions to act dynamically over different layers' parameters. In addition, our proposal exploits path diversity as a mean to reinforce QoS provision to layered-coded video-streaming applications, by protecting the most important video information packets. To show the advantages of our approach, we have developed an algorithm based on ViStA-XL. Simulation results show that our proposed network design can improve the performance of video-streaming transmissions over MANETs in spite of frequent changes in network topology and node's conditions