Research Article Open Access I n t e r n a ti o n a l J o u r n a l o f S e n s o r N e t w o r k s a n d D a t a C o m m u n i c a ti o n s ISSN: 2090-4886 El Dien et al., Sensor Netw Data Commun 2016, 5:1 DOI: 10.4172/2090-4886.1000136 Volume 5 • Issue 1 • 1000136 Sensor Netw Data Commun, an open access journal ISSN: 2090-4886 International Journal of Sensor Networks and Data Communications Keywords: Wireless multimedia sensor networks; Cross layer design; WMSNs; GOP structure; Packet scheduling; Queue scheduling; Path scheduling Introduction WMSNs is an ad-hoc arrangement of wirelessly interconnected multifunctional sensor nodes that allow retrieving video and au- dio streams, still images, and scalar sensor data. Sensor nodes can be densely distributed over large even remote areas, and will continue to collaborate their efforts to the benefit of the network; even if a number of nodes malfunction, the network will continue to function. It is expected that there will be different multimedia applications [1] with different Qos metrics will exist, such as family monitors [2], traffic routing [3], industrial process control [4], surveillance sensor networks [3], and healthcare delivery [5], but there are many chal- lenges for transmitting multimedia over such type of networks [6] due to constrained nodes whether in terms of limited battery lifetime, lim- ited memory and limited throughput. In addition, all of such wireless networks commonly uses wireless channel for communication, which suffers from interference problems, multipath fading, shadowing and high signal attenuation effects, that results in a high bit error rate and fluctuated bandwidth due to link failures and congested packets. In addition to multimedia Qos guarantees, Network lifetime man- agement and balanced usage of battery power add additional challeng- es, due to sensors operating using batteries and progress in battery de- velopment is limited and replacing such battery is costly or impossible. Routing protocols plays an important role for increasing through- put and decreasing end-to-end delay. However single path routing protocols are not efficient for Qos requirements for multimedia trans- mission such as delay and loss. Multipath routing [7] is an alternative approach to handle multimedia transmission, as it increases bandwidth efficiency, reliability, decreases end-to-end delay, and evenly spread power consumption in the network. Cross-layer design [8-12] shows that it is a promising approach to handle multimedia based transmission over WSN. Traditional OSI layered architecture’s networking services are organized and provided by specific layers without sharing or communication between them. Cross-layer approach optimizes the performance of the network through violating the traditional approach in many different ways such as: allowing sharing information across layers, direct communication between layers, creating new intermediate interfaces between layers or merging adjacent layers. In this work, an adaptive multimedia transmission framework called Energy Aware Framework for multimedia Transmission over Wireless Sensor Networks (ECWMSN) is presented. It is an extension of previously introduced [13], so that current framework includes three main character- istics: adaptive MPEG-4 video encoder, packet and path scheduling. It is a cross-layer framework that communicates current wireless channel state to application layer, so that application layer can apply proper video encoding parameters according to the current state of the wireless channel. Each video packet has different priority and effect on video transmitted, so for packet effect on video transmitted, Sink node analyzes suitable video encoding parameters and sends it back to source node to use it, while for packet priority it schedules packets into different queues and at time of congestion, it drops less important packets without affecting video quality. Finally framework extended to schedule different packet types on different routes according to packet type and matched path cost considering network lifetime. So by combining cross layer design with multipath routing, packet and path scheduling in one single framework to transmit multimedia content over WSN shows a promising framework that can optimize bandwidth, multimedia quality and network lifetime. *Corresponding author: Mohammed Ezz El Dien, Department of Computer Science, University of Helwan, Helwan, Egypt, Tel: 201118600224; E-mail: mohamed.ezz011@gmail.com Received February 14, 2016; Accepted February 15, 2016; Published February 18, 2016 Citation: El Dien ME, Youssif AAA, Ghalwash AZ (2016) Energy-Aware Cross Layer Framework for Multimedia Transmission over Wireless Sensor Networks. Sensor Netw Data Commun 5: 136. doi: 10.4172/2090-4886.1000136 Copyright: © 2016 El Dien ME, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs), is a network of sensors which are limited in terms of computational, memory, bandwidth, and battery capability. Multimedia transmission over WSN requires certain Qos guarantees such as huge amount of bandwidth, strict delay and lower loss ratio, which makes transmitting multimedia content over it, is a challenging problem. Recently adopting cross-layer design in WMSNs proved to be a promising approach, which improves quality of service of WSN under various operational conditions. In this work, an energy aware framework for transmitting multimedia content over WSN (ECWMSN) is presented, where packet and path scheduling were introduced, so that It adaptably selects optimum video encoding parameters at application layer according to current wireless channel state, and schedules packets according to its type to drop less important packets in case of network congestion. Finally, path scheduling is introduced so that different packets types/priority is routed through suitable path with suitable Qos taking into consideration the network lifetime. Simulation results show that ECWMSN optimizes video quality and prolongs network lifetime. Energy-Aware Cross Layer Framework for Multimedia Transmission over Wireless Sensor Networks Mohammed Ezz El Dien*, Aliaa AA Youssif and Atef Zaki Ghalwash Department of Computer Science, University of Helwan, Helwan, Egypt