An Adaptive FEC Mechanism Using Cross-layer Approach to Enhance Quality of Video Transmission over 802.11 WLANs

Forward Error Correction (FEC) techniques have been adopted to overcome packet losses and to improve the quality of video delivery. The efficiency of the FEC has been significantly compromised, however, due to the characteristics of the wireless channel such as burst packet loss, channel fluctuation and lack of Quality of Service (QoS) support. We propose herein an Adaptive Cross-layer FEC mechanism (ACFEC) to enhance the quality of video streaming over 802.11 WLANs. Under the conventional approaches, FEC functions are implemented on the application layer, and required feedback information to calculate redundancy rates. Our proposed ACFEC mechanism, however, leverages the functionalities of different network layers. The Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) function on the Media Access Control (MAC) layer can detect packet losses. Through cooperation with the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), the redundancy rates are adaptively controlled based on the packet loss information. The experiment resu...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: ITIIS
• Authors: Longzhe Han, Sungjun Park, Seung-Seok Kang, Hoh Peter In
• Keywords: Channel Fluctuations, ITIIS 2010, Packet Losses, Redundancy Rates