ViStA-XL: A Cross-Layer Design for Video-Streaming over 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 because of the dynamic inherent characteristics of these networks. To cope with this, in this paper we propose a Cross-Layer (XL) network architecture design to optimize the overall performance of video- streaming services over MANETs. 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. In order to minimize the error between received and transmitted video signals, the XLO module takes then the necessary decisions to act on different layers´ parameters dynamically. Preliminary 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 conditions.