Multimedia over highly dynamic mobile wireless ad hoc networks: A cross layer collaborative approach

A novel framework for multimedia communications over highly dynamic MANETs is proposed. The proposed framework is model-based and has many virtues such as scalability, self-organization, and self-healing, just name a few. To develop such a framework, significant theoretical and simulation efforts need to be made in cross-layer optimization, multipath routing of multimedia over the low-bandwidth MANETs, and performance evaluation. In our approach, we propose a novel cross-layer optimization approach to take QoS into account at MAC, network, transport, and application layers for multipath routing of multimedia over MANET; A Multiple Description (MD) coding technique will be integrated to offer great potential for video communications over military MANETs under extreme conditions. A novel model-based simulation infrastructure with an integrated executable modeling solution across multiple design abstraction layers will be built to facilitate the operational specification, design, and development simulation of the class of content-driven distributed applications. Finally, a video quality evaluation framework will be developed to efficiently assess the quality of transmitted video based mainly on frame decoding errors.