Application Layer Energy-Efficient Scalable Video Cooperative Multicast in Cellular Networks

In conventional multicasting of cellular networks, due to channel diversity of receivers, data rates of the base stations (BS) are limited to ensure all mobile stations (MS) receive packets correctly. This method, besides the increased power consumption, deprives MSs from getting better video quality than they could get at higher bit-rates. This paper proposes two new application layer multicasting schemes named HMCM and H2CM that exploit cooperative multicast (CM) of two-layer scalable video coding to transmit each layer of video in two different paths in order to reduce power consumption. In both methods, the base layer of video is transmitted by the BS through cellular network (e.g., 4G or 5G) to all MSs in the cell area. This makes sure minimum video quality is guaranteed for all MSs. In the second stage, the enhancement layer of video is transmitted by CM in multi-stages to all MSs that helps to reduce power consumption. Using mathematical analysis and NS3 simulator, it is shown, compared to the conventional multicasting of single layer video, both HMCM and H2CM, at a given error rate, depending on the ratio of the base layer to total video bit-rate, can reduce power consumption of the BS by 70% and 40% respectively and 12% reduction in total power consumption by H2CM. Moreover, since the proposed approaches are entirely implemented in the application layer, they can be used in most wireless standards without any modifications to the network stack.