Abstract
The tremendous success of the IEEE 802.11b technology and the popularity of portable computing units (e.g., PDAs) have led to a surge of Wi-Fi based real-time multimedia applications. However, due to the unpredictable and often fluctuating channel behavior, it is rather difficult to configure an appropriate de-jitter buffer to maintain a satisfactory perceived quality for end users. Motivated by this problem, we propose in this paper an adaptive delay and synchronization control scheme for Wi-Fi based AV conferencing applications. We target at campus-wide IEEE802.11b WLANs that are generally capable of supporting low-latency multimedia applications. The proposed scheme employs a distributed timing mechanism and performs localized control at the receiver side. The scheme can also be configiured flexibly with either one of the two inter-stream synchronization control options. Based on real-time monitored synchronization errors, Media Data Unit (MDU) loss, and real-time statistical estimation of the delay jitter among adjacent MDUs, the scheme is able to piece-wisely adjust the equalization delay to compensate for the delay jitter and control the MDU loss effectively. We investigate the performance of the proposed scheme using trace-driven approach. Through simulations, we show that the proposed scheme is capable of dynamically balancing between synchronization and latency requirements and effectively control the MDU loss as well. In particular, compared to the solutions using a static setting, the proposed scheme is able to provide the same MDU loss performance with a significant reduction in resultant latency.
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Haining Liu is currently a graduate student researcher in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He received the B.E. degree and M.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from Tianjin University (China) in 1994 and 1997, respectively. After that, he was with the Beijing Posts and Telecommunications Design Institute of Ministry of Information Industry (China) as a telecommunications design engineer from 1997 to 1999. He received another M.S.E. degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. His research interests include multimedia networking, wireless networks and real-time systems.
Magda El Zarki received the B.E.E. from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt in 1979 and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, New York City, NY in 1981 in December 1987. Currently she holds the position of Professor in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, where she is involved in the telecommunication networks program. Prior to that she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she also held the position of Director of the Telecommunications Program. From 1992–1996 she held the position of Professor of Telecommunications at the Technical University of Delft, Delft, The Netherlands. Ms. El Zarki is the co-author of a new text: Mastering Networks: An Internet Lab Manual. She is also on the editorial board of several journals in the telecommunications area, and is actively involved in many international conferences.
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Liu, H., Zarki, M.E. Adaptive Delay and Synchronization Control for Wi-Fi Based Mobile AV Conferencing. Wireless Pers Commun 34, 143–162 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-005-8731-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-005-8731-0