Reliable video multicast over Wi-Fi networks with coordinated multiple APs

Abstract

Forward Error Correction (FEC) can be exploited to realize reliable video multicast over Wi-Fi with high video quality. We propose reliable video multicast over Wi-Fi networks with coordinated multiple Access Points (APs) to enhance video quality. By coordinating multiple APs, each AP can transmit entirely or partially different FEC-encoded packets so that a multicast receiver can benefit from both spatial and time diversities. The proposed schemes can enlarge the satisfactory video multicast region by exploiting the AP diversity, thus serving more multicast receivers located at cell edge with satisfactory video quality. We propose a resource-allocation algorithm for FEC-code rate adaptation, utilizing the limited wireless resource more efficiently while enhancing video quality. We also introduce the method for estimating the video packet delivery ratio after FEC decoding. The effectiveness of the proposed schemes is comparatively evaluated via extensive simulation and experimentation. The proposed schemes are observed to enhance the ratio of satisfied users by up to 37.1% compared to the conventional single AP multicast scheme.