Multipath Video Streaming Using GRA Network Ordering Algorithm without Rank Inconsistency

  • Árpád Huszák
  • Sándor Imre

Abstract

Simultaneous connection to several networks through multiple interfaces is possible with today’s mobile terminals. In order to efficiently utilize the interfaces’ capabilities and increase the quality of the streamed video, multipath streaming can be used. Resource intensive applications can deliver high bitrate streams over multiple paths bycumulating the available bandwidth of the different subpaths. In this paper we propose a multipath streaming method that chooses a set of paths maximizing the overall quality at the client. While the available paths have different bandwidth, delay and loss probability constrains, the packet distributor must take the video packet importance and the dependencies between packets into account. In order to efficiently distributethe packets, the link must be ordered based on the network attributes. Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) is a promising algorithmic approach that can realize dynamic interface ordering with multiple alternatives (interfaces) and attributes (network parameters). However similarly to some other decision methods, GRA also suffers from rank reversal phenomenon. Transmitting the reference video frames on the most reliable links will decrease the loss probability of important data packets and increase the measured video quality. The change of link order can lead to frequent handovers causing the degradation of the observed video quality.
Published
2009-06-28
Section
Regular Articles