Content-aware packet scheduling for multi-session video streaming over wireless mesh networks

Packet scheduling is of great importance to the performance optimization of multi-session video streaming over wireless mesh networks. In this paper, we explore the time-varying characteristics of the input videos and propose a Content-and-Deadline-Aware Scheduling (CDAS) scheme for multi-session video streaming over wireless multi-hop networks. The basic idea of proposed scheduling scheme is to choose and transmit more packets with higher importance while meeting their stringent delay constraints, to maximize the constructed video quality at the receivers' side. More specifically, the packet schedule is determined in such a way that not only the backlog, but also the contributions to the reconstructed videos as well as the stringent delay constraints and time-varying network condition are all considered. This is enabled by our proposed priority model composed of two major components: content priority and scheduling priority. For the content priority, we develop a fast and efficient packet-level transmission distortion model to accurately predict the corresponding distortion for a lost packet at the encoder side. For scheduling priority, we consider delay requirement and dynamic network conditions of subsequent transmission links. Our extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed transmission distortion model and the CDAS policy significantly improve the performance of multi-session video streaming over wireless mesh networks.