Round-robin streaming with generations

We consider three types of application layer coding for streaming over lossy links: random linear coding, systematic random linear coding, and structured coding. The file being streamed is divided into sub-blocks (generations). Code symbols are formed by combining data belonging to the same generation, and transmitted in a round-robin fashion. We compare the schemes based on delivery packet count, net throughput, and energy consumption for a range of generation sizes. We determine these performance measures both analytically and in an experimental configuration. We find our analytical predictions to match the experimental results. We show that coding at the application layer brings about a significant increase in net data throughput, and thereby reduction in energy consumption due to reduced communication time. On the other hand, on devices with constrained computing resources, heavy coding operations cause packet drops in higher layers and negatively affect the net throughput. We find from our experimental results that low-rate MDS codes are best for small generation sizes, whereas systematic random linear coding has the best net throughput and lowest energy consumption for larger generation sizes due to its low decoding complexity.