An energy diffserv and application-aware MAC scheduling for VBR streaming video in the IEEE 802.15.3 high-rate wireless personal area networks

Pseudo-static time division multiple access (pTDMA) channel access is adopted in the IEEE 802.15.3 specification of high-rate wireless personal area networks. However, in the pTDMA, unnecessary transceiver startup and idle listening of destination devices consume much energy. Furthermore, the pTDMA is not efficient for variable bit rate video flows. In this paper, we propose an energy diffserv and application-aware scheduling (EDAS) algorithm in the medium access control layer for delay-sensitive variable bit rate streaming video. The proposed EDAS scheme takes energy efficiency, quality of service, and fairness into considerations. It includes a channel time partition mechanism, an application-aware dynamic channel time allocation algorithm, as well as a flow admission control mechanism. The EDAS scheme also provides an energy differentiated service to the devices with different remaining-energy levels. Simulation results show that the proposed EDAS scheme outperforms the IEEE 802.15.3 pTDMA significantly in terms of fraction of decodable video frames and energy efficiency.