Optimized cross-layer unequal error protection for wireless video communication

Abstract

Error control strategies to video bitstream are usually provided at different layers of the communication network. Optimizing the error control strategies at different layers independently leads to inefficient utilization of the resources. In this paper, a cross-layer strategy to optimally utilize the application and physical layer resources for unequal error protection (UEP) of wavelet coded scalable video is investigated. We propose a cross-layer optimized UEP scheme, combining optimal forward error correction (FEC) at application layer and hierarchical QAM (HQAM) at physical layer. A look-up table-based approach, to select optimal parameter values at both layers that maximizes the overall video quality for a given channel condition, is suggested. A wide range of video sequences of different degree of motion and texture are considered to design the look-up table. The major advantage of the look-up table based approach is the low computation complexity of the transmission system, which is one of the major issue in portable video communication devices. Simulation results show the proposed scheme outperforms other techniques comprehensively over a wide range of channel conditions.