Novel Network Coding-based Techniques for Multi-layer Video Delivery over Multi-hop Wireless testbed

The actual performance of video delivery over wireless networks is best captured through experimental studies over real testbed, which is crucial to uncover the technical problems and practical challenges of realizing the proposed video delivery techniques. Network coding (NC) provides a paradigm shift to optimize the network resources for enhancing the video quality as a result of delivery over multi-hop wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for evaluating the performance of NC-based video delivery over multi-hop wireless networks. Based on an experimental testbed implementation of inter-layer video coding and delivery, we propose a new generalized technique for multi-hop interlayer NC in enhancing video delivery quality. We evaluate the trade-off between complexity of multi-hop NC, and video quality gain. We provide clear recommendations for best design choices of NC-based interlayer video coding and delivery over multi-hop wireless mesh network considering link conditions and Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR). The results show that using NC improves the layered video performance in single and multi-hop network. The average number of decoded layers when using NC in single hop outperforms that when using NC in multi-hop. Keywords— Network Coding, layered video, multi-hop, Wireless Mesh Network, testbed.