EAGER: Perceptual-Quality-Aware Video Communication in Wireless Camera Networks

University Of Cincinnati Main Campus, Cincinnati OH

Investigators

Abstract

Recent advances in imaging hardware and wireless communications have fostered the deployment of embedded camera sensors in various wireless imaging applications, such as surveillance, smart building operations, intelligent transportation, remote health care, and consumer electronics and entertainment. It is essential to guarantee the delivery of videos generated by camera sensors to an end user with good quality. In particular, the need to maintain good perceptual quality is driven by many human-centered imaging applications, where human users rely on the received videos to make critical decisions. However, many subjective tests have shown that the perceptual quality of networked videos as evaluated by viewers cannot be merely determined by common network QoS (quality-of-service) metrics such as bit rate and packet loss ratio. Factors such as video content characteristics and compression parameters also have significant impacts on perceptual quality. The objective of this project is to achieve efficient perceptual-quality-aware video communication in wireless camera networks by jointly considering the various factors contributing to perceptual video quality. Success of the proposed research will boost user experience and enhance user's capabilities to explore and interact with the physical world through applications based on wireless camera networks. This project proposes a systematic solution for predicting and controlling perceptual video quality in wireless camera networks. The proposed research is based on: i) light-weight and accurate prediction of perceptual video quality in the network; ii) comprehensive analysis of the relationships between perceptual video quality and network parameters; iii) exploring possible ways to achieve energy-efficiency and bandwidth-efficiency by utilizing the properties of perceptual quality; and iv) designing novel rate control and scheduling protocols that can effectively control perceptual quality in dynamic network conditions. The research solutions of the project are expected to provide satisfactory perceptual video quality to users using the minimum energy and bandwidth resources in wireless camera networks. The research solutions will demonstrate how to improve user experience in wireless camera networks by utilizing the properties of perceptual video quality. The proposed research will bridge the gap between the studies in perceptual video quality and the design of wireless video communication protocols, and it will inspire new research in perceptual quality provisioning for many other wireless sensing applications.