Media-Aware Multi-User Rate Allocation over Wireless Mesh Network

When multiple video streams are transmitted in a wireless mesh network, each stream needs to adapt its rate to the time-varying traffic in the network. We propose a media-aware rate allocation algorithm that adjusts the video rate based on both video content and network congestion. This is combined with cross-layer information exchange: the video agent relies on estimated link state at each hop along the path, as well as accumulated congestion increment reported by the routing agent. We discuss in detail how the distributed optimization can be realized at each wireless node, and present simulations of the proposed rate allocation algorithm over an 802.11 wireless mesh network. Experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme can effectively adapt the allocated rate to the presence of new streams in the network in a congestion-distortion optimized manner. In comparison with TCP-friendly rate control (TFRC), the proposed scheme can achieve a higher average video quality for all users while maintaining lower overall network congestion