Channel condition ARQ rate control for real-time wireless video under buffer constraints

Abstract

Many emerging applications involve real-time packet video transmission over noisy wireless networks. To ensure reliable video transmission, an automatic repeat request (ARQ) scheme is used for repairing packet loss over a channel by retransmitting corrupted packets. However, an ARQ resolves the problem of packet loss at the expense of varying an effective channel rate as well as introducing extra latency. These properties increase the difficulty of rate control for real-time wireless video when the buffer overflow and underflow are taken into account. Therefore, we propose a novel ARQ-based rate control scheme, called "channel condition ARQ rate control" by using embedded coding to design an efficient retransmission policy for wireless video. This scheme achieves both maximal channel utilization and smooth video quality perceived at an end-host, which has a low implementation complexity under buffer constraints. We have conducted extensive simulations to verify the efficiency and robustness of the proposed scheme.