Prioritized Multipath Video Forwarding in WSN

The realization of Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) has been fostered by the availability of low cost and low power CMOS devices. However, the transmission of bulk video data requires adequate bandwidth, which cannot be promised by single path communication on an intrinsically low resourced sensor network. Moreover, the distortion or artifacts in the video data and the adherence to delay threshold adds to the challenge. In this paper, we propose a two stage Quality of Service (QoS) guaranteeing scheme called Prioritized Multipath WMSN (PMW) for transmitting H.264 encoded video. Multipath selection based on QoS metrics is done in the first stage, while the second stage further prioritizes the paths for sending H.264 encoded video frames on the best available path. PMW uses two composite metrics that are comprised of hop-count, path energy, BER, and end-to-end delay. A colorcoded assisted network maintenance and failure recovery scheme has also been proposed using (a) smart greedy mode, (b) walking back mode, and (c) path switchover. Moreover, feedback controlled adaptive video encoding can smartly tune the encoding parameters based on the perceived video quality. Computer simulation using OPNET validates that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the conventional approaches on human eye perception and delay. Keywords—WMSN, H.264, Multiple Paths, Quality of Service