Performance evaluation of the IEEE 802.11aa multicast mechanisms for video streaming

Video traffic is foreseen to account for the majority of the Internet traffic in the near future. While the demand of video transmission keeps growing, the vast majority of wireless equipment deployed in the home environment, based on IEEE 802.11, cannot satisfy the amount of bandwidth that the video applications require. In order to cope with the increasing demand of multimedia traffic, the IEEE 802.11aa Task Group has recently standardized new mechanisms to allow efficient and robust transmission of multicast flows in Wireless LAN. However, the standard leaves open the choice of which one to use for a given scenario. In this paper, we explore the new mechanisms introduced by the 802.11aa Task Group, providing insights of the new choices for handling group addressed frames, by carrying out extensive simulations. Our results highlight the various trade-offs each mechanism has in terms of robustness, resource consumption and complexity, and provide a set of recommended guidelines for their use.

[1]  A. M. Abdullah,et al.  Wireless lan medium access control (mac) and physical layer (phy) specifications , 1997 .

[2]  Jose Miguel Villalón Millán,et al.  Evaluation of the IEEE 802.11aa group addressed service for robust audio-video streaming , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

[3]  Vladimir M. Vishnevsky,et al.  Multicast QoS Support in IEEE 802.11 WLANs , 2007, 2007 IEEE Internatonal Conference on Mobile Adhoc and Sensor Systems.

[4]  Itu-T and Iso Iec Jtc.  Advanced video coding for generic audiovisual services , 2010 .

[5]  Anish Arora,et al.  Reliable MAC layer multicast in IEEE 802.11 wireless networks , 2002, Proceedings International Conference on Parallel Processing.

[6]  Chen Xi,et al.  Cross-layer link rate adaptation for high performance multimedia broadcast over WLANs , 2010, 2010 IEEE Globecom Workshops.

[7]  Martin Reisslein,et al.  Video Transport Evaluation With H.264 Video Traces , 2012, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[8]  Sandeep K. S. Gupta,et al.  Reliable multicast MAC protocol for wireless LANs , 2003, IEEE International Conference on Communications, 2003. ICC '03..

[9]  Guangjun Wen,et al.  Video Stream Groupcast Optimization in WLAN , 2010, 2010 International Conference on Internet Technology and Applications.

[10]  Heiko Schwarz,et al.  Wireless Broadcasting Using the Scalable Extension of H. 264/AVC , 2005, 2005 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo.

[11]  Michele Garetto,et al.  Modeling Per-Flow Throughput and Capturing Starvation in CSMA Multi-Hop Wireless Networks , 2006, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2006. 25TH IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications.

[12]  Thorsten Herfet,et al.  Efficient OFDM-based WLAN-multicast with feedback aggregation, power control and rate adaptation , 2012, Comput. Commun..

[13]  Yanghee Choi,et al.  Leader-Based Rate Adaptive Multicasting for Wireless LANs , 2007, IEEE GLOBECOM 2007 - IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference.

[14]  Periklis Chatzimisios,et al.  IEEE 802.11aa: Improvements on video transmission over wireless LANs , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

[15]  Özgü Alay,et al.  Dynamic Rate and FEC Adaptation for Video Multicast in Multi-rate Wireless Networks , 2009, 2009 5th International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks & Communities and Workshops.

[16]  Sneha Kumar Kasera,et al.  Reliable Multicast in Multi-Access Wireless LANs , 1999, IEEE INFOCOM '99. Conference on Computer Communications. Proceedings. Eighteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies. The Future is Now (Cat. No.99CH36320).

[17]  Andrey I. Lyakhov,et al.  Analytical Study of QoS-Oriented Multicast in Wireless Networks , 2011, EURASIP J. Wirel. Commun. Netw..

[18]  Miska M. Hannuksela,et al.  H.264/AVC in wireless environments , 2003, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol..

[19]  Zhao Li,et al.  Wireless feedback cancellation for leader-based MAC layer multicast protocols : Measurement and simulation results on the feasibility of leader-based MAC protocols using feedback cancellation on the 802.11aa wireless multicast network , 2010, IEEE International Symposium on Consumer Electronics (ISCE 2010).

[20]  Arturo Azcorra,et al.  Optimal Configuration of 802.11e EDCA for Real-Time and Data Traffic , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

[21]  Thomas R. Henderson,et al.  Validation of OFDM error rate model in ns-3 , 2010 .