Content-Aware Packet Scheduling for Multiuser Scalable Video Delivery Over Wireless Networks

Wireless video transmission is prone to potentially low data rates and unpredictable degradations due to time-varying channel conditions. Such degradations are difficult to overcome using conventional video coding techniques. Scalable video coding offers a flexible bitstream that can be dynamically adapted to fit the prevailing channel conditions. Advances in scalable video compression techniques, such as the newly adopted scalable extension of H.264/AVC, as well as recent advances in wireless access technologies offer possibilities for tackling this challenge. In this paper, a content-aware scheduling and resource allocation scheme is proposed, that uses a gradient-based scheduling framework in conjunction with scalable video coding techniques to provide multiple high quality video streams over a range of operating conditions to multiple users. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme performs better than conventional content-independent scheduling techniques.