Nonstop: continuous multimedia streaming in wireless ad hoc networks with node mobility

Abstract

Guaranteeing continuous streaming of multimedia data from service providers to the users is a challenging task in wireless ad hoc networks, particularly when node mobility is considered. The topological dynamics introduced by node mobility are further exacerbated by the natural grouping behavior of mobile users, which leads to frequent network partitioning. Network partitioning poses significant challenges to the provisioning of continuous multimedia streaming services in wireless ad hoc networks, since the partitioning disconnects many mobile users from the centralized streaming service. In this paper, we propose NonStop, a collection of novel middleware-based run-time algorithms that ensures the continuous availability of such multimedia streaming services, while minimizing the overhead involved. The network-wide continuous streaming coverage is achieved by partition prediction and service replication on the streaming sources and assisted by distributed selection of streaming sources on regular mobile nodes and users. The proposed algorithms are validated by extensive results from performance evaluations.