<title>Multimedia wireless networking</title>

Abstract

Current wireless network systems (e.g. metropolitan cellular) are constrained by fixed bandwidth allocations and support only a narrow range of services (voice and low bit-rate data). To overcome these constraints and advance the state of the art in wireless multimedia communications, we are developing variable-rate video and speech compression algorithms, and wireless node architectures that will enable peer-to-peer multimedia networking even with very low bandwidth. To support this objective, each wireless node must support new applications (for multimedia), advances in networking and source coding to support multimedia under limited bandwidth conditions (wireless), advances in physical layer design to support robust, low power, high packet throughput links, low power DSP for multimedia compression, and an architectural strategy to integrate these components into an efficient node. The algorithms and architectures to support this functionality are presented here, together with some preliminary results on network performance.