Cross-Layer Error Recovery Scheme for Data Transmission over 4G Wireless Networks

Abstract

In a video streaming application, quality of experience for a user can be affected by various factors. The video quality can be improved if the effective throughput can be increased at an acceptable packet loss rate and low latency. To reduce the packet loss rate over error-prone channels, a cross-layer error control scheme is developed for heterogeneous data transmission over wireless channels in this paper. The error control scheme utilizes both link-layer automatic repeat request and application-layer channel coding. The automatic repeat request is served as providing a basic level of loss recovery without introducing intolerable delay, while the application-layer channel coding is based on the previously developed layer-aligned multipriority rateless codes to satisfy a desired packet loss rate at a minimal bandwidth overhead. The cross-layer architecture of the error control scheme will control the retransmission timers based on the channel conditions while the control parameters of the layer-aligned multipriority rateless codes will be determined to fulfill the heterogeneous requirement of overall packet loss rate required by an application at a minimal cost. The improved performance of the developed cross-layer scheme is confirmed with the experiments using a real-world 4G system.