Distributed network embedded FEC for real-time multicast applications in multi-hop wireless networks

Multi-hop wireless networks are becoming popular because of their flexibility and low deployment cost. Emerging technologies such as orthogonal frequency division and multiple in and multiple out have significantly increased the bandwidth of a wireless channel. Further, as device cost decreases, a communication terminal can have multiple radios and transmit/receive data simultaneously, which improves the capacity of a wireless network. This makes the support of real-time multicast applications over multi-hop wireless networks viable and practical. Meanwhile, wireless links are prone to random and burst losses due to multipath fading and cross channel interference, real-time multicast over a wireless network remains a challenging problem. Traditional end-to-end FEC is less efficient in multi-hop wireless networks, as packets may suffer from random or burst losses in more than one hop before they arrive at their destination. In this paper, we advocate the deployment of distributed network-embedded FEC (DNEF) for real-time multicast distribution over multi-hop wireless networks. We first develop a packet loss model of multi-hop wireless networks using a system analysis approach. We then propose a distributed codec placement algorithm and evaluate its performance. Our simulation shows that multicast using DNEF significantly outperforms both traditional multicast and application-level peer-to-peer multicast that can be deployed over multi-hop wireless networks.