Cross-layer co-exploration of exploiting error resilience for video over wireless applications

In this paper, we propose a cross-layer algorithm/architecture co-exploration for wireless multimedia systems to coordinate interactions among sub-layer optimizers for improvements in energy/QoS/reliability. By exploiting the inherent redundancy in wireless multimedia systems, we generate an expanded design space over traditional, layer-specific approaches. Specifically, we control the error resilient encoder at the application layer to provide awareness of architectural exploration at the physical layer (WCDMA) allowing new design points with lower power consumption via aggressive voltage scaling. While trying to reduce energy consumption, the fault tolerant technique compensates the effect of the hardware and network errors due to aggressive voltage scaling and lossy transmission, respectively. Our experiments on H.263 video over WCDMA communication system demonstrate that co-exploration enlarges the feasible design space which results in significant power savings of 34% in the H.263 encoder more than 20% in the WCDMA modem.