H.264 Video Delivery over Wireless Mesh Networks Based on Joint Adaptive Cross-Layer Mapping and MDCA MAC

This paper presents a QoS-guaranteed transmission of H.264 video over Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) based on an adaptive cross-layer mapping of IEEE 802.11e MAC strategy. We call this MDCA (Mesh Distributed Channel Access) MAC strategy as it is based on 802.11e standard with adaptive mechanism in response to dynamic nature of mesh networks. This novel MDCA strategy employs the channel reservation control packets at the MAC layer to exchange timely Channel State Estimation information for an optimal FEC at the application layer as well as the QoS-centric GEDSR model [1] for an optimal adaptation. The proposed scheme offers an optimized transmission to guarantee the minimum packets delay and drop rate needed for video over WMNs. In this research, we resolve the problem associated with 802.11e standard by designing an integrated scheme that allows the system to achieve the optimal transmission via a FEC implemented in the application layer. We evaluate the proposed scheme based on network-level metrics, including bit rate, packets delay and drop rates in comparison with the static cross-layer mapping scheme based on 802.11e WMNs. We can confirm that the adaptive cross-layer mapping strategy MDCA outperforms the static cross-layer mapping scheme by a significant margin.