QoE-aware radio access network architecture for http-based video streaming

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9246842-B2
Application number	US-201213688423-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 29, 2012
Priority date	Apr 27, 2012
Publication date	Jan 26, 2016
Grant date	Jan 26, 2016

Abstract

Technology for adapting a video stream using a quality of experience (QoE) report is disclosed. One method can include a QoE-aware system in a node of a radio access network (RAN) receiving a QoE report with at least one QoE metric from a wireless device. The QoE-aware system can extract the at least one QoE metric in a function layer from a QoE reporting layer. The function layer can be a layer other than the QoE reporting layer. The QoE-aware system can modify a layer function in the function layer to improve the QoE metric.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for adapting a video stream using a quality of experience (QoE) report, comprising:
receiving, at a node in a radio access network (RAN), a QoE report with at least one QoE metric from a wireless device;
extracting the at least one QoE metric in a function layer from a QoE reporting layer, wherein the function layer is a layer other than the QoE reporting layer; and
modifying, at the node in the RAN, a layer function in the function layer based on the QoE metric in the QoE report in order to perform a QoE-aware radio resource management (RRM) scheduling function to improve the QoE metric for the wireless device, wherein performing the QoE-aware RRM scheduling function comprises performing RRM scheduling based on (i) a first product of a frame rate and a penalty rate for violating a constraint on the frame rate, (ii) a second product of a penalty rate for violating a number of frames in a playback buffer constraint and a difference between number of frames in the playback buffer and the minimum allowed number of frames in the playback buffer and (iii) a product of the first product and exp(x), wherein x is the second product.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the QoE reporting layer is selected from the group consisting of an application layer, a service layer, a session layer, and a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) layer; and
the function layer is selected from the group consisting of a physical layer (PHY), a link layer, a media access control (MAC) layer, a radio resource control (RRC) layer, a network layer, and an internet protocol (IP) layer.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein
the layer function in the function layer is modified to further perform admission control, modulation and coding scheme (MCS) selection, link adaptation, radio resource management (RRM), quality of service (QoS) configuration, and combinations thereof; and
the QoE metric is selected from the group consisting of a buffer level, playout duration, rebuffering percentage, peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), video quality metric (VQM), structural similarity metric (SSIM), perceptual evaluation of video quality metric (PEVQ), video mean opinion scores (MOS), subjective quality metric, initial playout delay, media presentation description (MPD) information, and combinations thereof.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the QoE reporting layer is selected from the group consisting of a physical layer (PHY), a link layer, a media access control (MAC) layer, a radio resource control (RRC) layer, a network layer, and an internet protocol (IP) layer; and
the function layer is selected from the group consisting of an application layer, a service layer, a session layer, and a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) layer.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein
the layer function modifies a parameter selected from the group consisting of a buffer level, playout duration, rebuffering percentage, peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), video quality metric (VQM), structural similarity metric (SSIM), perceptual evaluation of video quality metric (PEVQ), video mean opinion scores (MOS), subjective quality metric, initial playout delay, media presentation description (MPD) information,
wherein a multimedia-specific application-layer parameter in the MPD information is selected from the group consisting of a multimedia bitrate, multimedia resolution, multimedia encoder frame rate, multimedia codec information, rate-distortion function for a multimedia stream, segment format information, three dimensional (3D) video format information, QoE metric, multimedia quality metric, number of group of picture (GOP) frames, quantization parameter for different frames, layer type in case of scalable video coding (SVC), application-level forward error correction (FEC) parameter, erasure coding parameter, network coding parameter, transport-specific parameter, application-level constraint, target quality of service (QoS) parameter, and combinations thereof; and
the QoE metric is selected from the group consisting of a channel condition, channel state information (CSI), resource availability, modulation and coding scheme (MCS), PHY layer parameter, link layer parameter, MAC layer parameter, RRC layer parameter, network layer parameter, IP layer parameter, and combinations thereof.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
activating QoE reporting for a wireless device;
requesting the at least one QoE metric to be reported by the wireless device;
configuring a QoE reporting framework for a QoE reporting server;
intercepting application layer signaling or service layer signaling for the at least one QoE metric; or
executing hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) server functions, wherein executing HTTP server functions, further comprises:
storing a QoE report, a media fragment, or media metadata;
transcoding the media fragment based on the QoE report;
modifying the media fragment or media metadata based on the QoE report; or
distributing the QoE report, the media fragment, or the media metadata using the HTTP protocol.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein extracting the at least one QoE metric uses an application programming interface (API).

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the node selected from the group consisting of an a base station (BS), a Node B (NB), an evolved Node B (eNB), a baseband unit (BBU), a remote radio head (RRH), a remote radio equipment (RRE), a remote radio unit (RRU), and combinations thereof.

9. At least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium comprising a plurality of instructions adapted to be executed to implement the method of claim 1 .

10. A quality of experience-aware (QoE-aware) system for hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)-based video streaming, comprising:
a quality of experience (QoE) reporting server to receive a QoE report with at least one QoE metric in a first layer from a wireless device and provide the at least one QoE metric to a second layer via a cross-layer interface; and
a QoE radio resource management (RRM) module to provide a QoE-aware RRM scheduling function based on the at least one QoE metric in the QoE report in order to improve the QoE metric for the wireless device, wherein the QoE-aware RRM scheduling function comprises performing RRM scheduling based on (i) a first product of a frame rate and a penalty rate for violating a constraint on the frame rate, (ii) a second product of a penalty rate for violating a number of frames in a playback buffer constraint and a difference between number of frames in the playback buffer and the minimum allowed number of frames in the playback buffer and (iii) a product of the first product and exp(x), wherein x is the second product.

11. The QoE-aware system of claim 10 , wherein the QoE-aware system is located within a radio access network (RAN).

12. The QoE-aware system of claim 11 , wherein the RAN includes a node selected from the group consisting of an a base station (BS), a Node B (NB), an evolved Node B (eNB), a baseband unit (BBU), a remote radio head (RRH), a remote radio equipment (RRE), a remote radio unit (RRU), and combinations thereof.

13. The QoE-aware system of claim 10 , wherein the QoE RRM module is further configured to provide QoE-aware RRM functions for admission control, modulation and coding scheme (MCS) selection, quality of service (QoS) configuration, and combinations thereof.

14. The QoE-aware system of claim 10 , wherein the performing RRM scheduling using the product of the first product and the exp(x) comprises making a scheduling decision using

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Oyman Ozgur
• Chatterjee Debdeep
• Papathanassiou Apostolos Tolis

Classifications

• H04W52/243

  taking into account interferences · CPC title

• H04W52/0206 Primary

  in access points, e.g. base stations · CPC title

• H04B17/345

  Interference values ({signal-to-interference ratio [SIR] or carrier-to-interference ratio [CIR]} H04B17/336) · CPC title

• H04B1/1027

  assessing signal quality or detecting noise/interference for the received signal · CPC title

• H04W52/02

  Power saving arrangements · CPC title