A cross-layer architecture for robust video streaming over multi-radio multi-channel wireless mesh networks

Video streaming over Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) can take advantage of the presence of multiple paths between each source and destination pair, as well as of the availability of multiple radio interfaces on the mesh nodes. In this paper, we propose a novel Channel Assignment and Multipath Routing Architecture (CAMRA) for supporting robust video streaming over Multi-Radio Multi-Channel WMNs. During route setup, multiple node disjoint paths are discovered between a source and a destination node. Channel allocation is performed so that the mutual among different paths is greatly mitigated, for the same source-destination pair. In order to enhance the reliability of video transmission, a load balancing scheme is introduced so that video frames are redundantly forwarded on multiple paths, based on the performance on each path and on packet-level loss estimations. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme is able to mitigate the impact of packet loss on streaming quality, while maintaining low overhead cost and low implementation complexity.