Video quality assessment for inter-vehicular streaming with IEEE 802.11p, LTE, and LTE Direct networks over fading channels

• Published in: Computer communications Vol. 118; pp. 69 - 80
• Main Authors: Roy, Debashri, Chatterjee, Mainak, Pasiliao, Eduardo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-03-2018
• ISSN: 0140-3664; 1873-703X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.comcom.2017.09.010

Availability of real time video streams capturing surrounding road conditions can not only aid automobile drivers and autonomous vehicles, they can also enhance road safety and improve traffic efficiency. However, provisioning of such services is challenging due to the harsh operational environments and stringent resource requirements of the applications. Nevertheless, radio access technologies like IEEE 802.11p, LTE, and LTE Direct have provisions for supporting real time streams for inter-vehicular communications.
In this paper, we present an emulation-based study to demonstrate to what extent these networks are able to sustain real-time video streaming for vehicle-to-vehicle communication. We model highways and congested urban road scenarios using Ricean and Rayleigh fading channel models respectively, that closely mimic the real-life environment. We use H.264 codec for transcoding 360p and 480p videos at the sender vehicle, and then stream the transport segments over a real-time transport protocol. The quality of the video received at the target vehicle is assessed using two metrics: PSNR and SSIM. The emulation is done for varying encoding rates, relative speeds between vehicles, and inter-vehicular distances. We also find the link layer throughput that these networks can support. The results reveal that LTE Direct performs better than 802.11p, which in turn performs better than LTE. This study also provides insights into how to configure the radio and network parameters for delivering streaming services to vehicular networks.