An adaptive multimedia streaming dissemination system for vehicular networks

An adaptive seamless streaming dissemination system for vehicular networks is presented in this work. An adaptive streaming system is established at each local server to prefetch and buffer stream data. The adaptive streaming system computes the parts of prefetched stream data for each user and stores them temporarily at the local server, based on current situation of the users and the environments where they are located. Thus, users can download the prefetched stream data from the local servers instead of from the Internet directly, meaning that the video playing problem caused by network congestion can be avoided. Several techniques such as stream data prefetching, stream data forwarding, and adaptive dynamic decoding were utilized for enhancing the adaptability of different users and environments and achieving the best transmission efficiency. Fuzzy logic inference systems are utilized to determine if a roadside base station or a vehicle can be chosen to transfer stream data for users. Considering the uneven deployment of BSs and vehicles, a bandwidth reservation mechanism for premium users was proposed to ensure the QoS of the stream data premium users received. A series of simulations were conducted, with the experimental results verifying the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed work. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.