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Due to the emergence of mobile 3D devices, multi-view 3D videos are expected to play increasingly important roles in providing immersively interactive experiences to users. Compared with traditional single-view videos, it is envisaged that a multi-view 3D video requires larger storage space and bandwidth consumption. Nevertheless, efficient caching for multi-view 3D videos in a mobile proxy has not been explored in the literature. In this paper, therefore, we first observe that the storage space can be effectively reduced by leveraging Depth Image Based Rendering (DIBR) in multi-view 3D videos. We then formulate a new cache management problem, named Adaptive View Selection and Cache Operation (AVSCO), and find the optimal policy based on Markov Decision Process (MDP). Afterward, we propose an approximate MDP to effectively aggregate similar states to reduce the MDP state space and devise an efficient and effective algorithm to support human visual continuity in AVSCO. Simulation results manifest that the proposed algorithms can significantly improve the cache hit rate and reduce the bandwidth consumption for the remote access compared with the existing cache replacement algorithms.

Most scheduling algorithms in the literature for cellular networks are concerned with throughput, fairness, or cost optimization. Recently, however, wireless surveillance in cellular networks has become increasingly important, and more and more institutions and companies have adopted commercial cellular surveillance cameras due to their low installation cost and the wide network coverage. In this paper, therefore, we first explore the resource allocation problem for a multi-camera surveillance system in cellular networks. We minimize the number of allocated resource blocks (RBs) while simultaneously ensuring the coverage requirement for the surveillance system in cellular networks. Specifically, we first describe our system model and then formulate the Camera Set Resource Allocation Problem (CSRAP). Next, we prove that the problem is NP-hard and inapproximable within ln n, where n is the number of surveillance targets. To solve the problem, we propose an approximation algorithm for the general case of CSRAP and then we find the optimal solutions of three deployments of cameras in the Manhattan Street Network to find the intrinsic characteristics of camera selections. The simulation results, based on two real surveillance maps and synthetic datasets, show that the number of allocated RBs can be effectively reduced compared to the existing approach for cellular networks.

With the advance of the photovoltaic panel technology, the infrastructure equipment of cellular networks with solar energy sources has attracted extensive interests. It is expected that base stations (BSs) and relay stations (RSs) with renewable energy will play important roles in reducing the power consumption from electrical grids in future green cellular networks. Inspired by this technology trend, this paper considers a heterogeneous green cellular network, in which a part of RSs is powered by solar energy sources to represent the incremental deployment for the infrastructure with renewable energy in the near future. We formulate a new relay selection and power allocation problem with Mixed Integer Linear Programming to select solar-powered RSs and grid-powered RSs, such that the total grid power consumption is effectively minimized in decode-and-forward cooperative communication networks. We design an algorithm to derive the optimal solution, and also devise an efficient distributed algorithm to reduce the computational cost. The simulation results demonstrate that the algorithms can effectively reduce the total grid power consumption with different channel conditions, different deployments of RSs in a network, and different available power levels in solar-powered RSs. In addition, the problem model and the proposed algorithms can be extended to support hybrid energy sources.

With the recent emergence of naked-eye 3D mobile devices and various 3D-enabled laptops, service providers now afford the opportunity to provide mobile 3D video streaming in LTE-Advanced networks. Differing from traditional single-view 3D videos, multi-view 3D videos allow users to choose preferred view angles and thus are promising for new applications, such as free-viewpoint television (FTV). Nevertheless, enabling multi-view 3D video services may overwhelm the network resource when transmitting all views of every video. Fortunately, Depth-Image-Based Rendering (DIBR) allows each mobile client to synthesize the desired view from a nearby left view and right view, so that not all views of a video are necessarily transmitted. A new challenge with DIBR, however, is to carefully choose the transmitted views to limit the video distortion and minimize the bandwidth consumption. In this paper, therefore, we first formulate a new optimization problem, called View and MCS Selection (VMS) Problem, to minimize the bandwidth consumption for multi-view 3D video multicast in LTE networks. An algorithm, called View and MCS Aggregation (VMAG) is proposed to find the optimal solution to VMS. For Carrier Aggregation (CA) in LTE-Advanced networks, we formulate a new View, MCS and Carrier Selection (VMCS) Problem and prove that the problem is NP-Hard. We first design a dynamic programming algorithm, called the View Assignment with MCS and Carrier (VAMC) algorithm, to find the optimal solution for small instances. We then propose the View and MCS Aggregation with Carrier (VMAGC) algorithm based on VMAG to effectively find the near-optimal solution to VMCS. The simulation results show that bandwidth consumption can be effectively reduced by over 30 percent in VMS and VMCS.

Depth-Image-Based Rendering (DIBR) is a popular technology and enables the viewers to watch multi-view 3D videos via TV or smart phone. In this paper, we propose a game-theoretical framework over a multi-view and multi-video network where one server delivers multiple multi-view 3D videos to multiple viewers. In a mobile network, any individual viewers can subscribe to a video with any viewing angle within a specified viewing range in 3D-enabled mobile handsets. To facilitate efficient resource allocation for multi-view 3D videos, we formulate a new resource allocation problem, named Price-based 3D Viewing Range Control problem (PVRC), as a Stackelberg game in Game Theory, in which the server and the viewers are modeled as the leader and the followers, respectively, to jointly consider the revenue of the server and the utilities of the viewers. We analyze the price setting problem by investigating the Stackelberg equilibrium between the server and viewers. Simulation results demonstrate that compared to popular uniform-price setting, non-uniform pricing is an effective approach for reducing the difference of utilities among the viewers, effectively controlling the viewing ranges and avoiding starvation of the network resources to only few viewers. Moreover, we also derive the social optimum in the problem, and the simulation results show that the derived Stackelberg equilibrium is close to the social optimum.

With the advances of communications, computing, and positioning technologies, mobile devices have been regarded as mobile computing platforms for various kinds of location-based and human-computation services. However, most existing applications regard each device as a sensor or focus on services with the computation on a single device. In contrast, this paper leverages a group of mobile devices as a collaborative and distributed search platform. Specifically, we propose a search system with mobile devices for rescue and patrol operations. The system utilizes mobile devices to find and assign the search route to each searcher in a collaborative and distributed manner. Given the roads to be searched in an area and the candidate start locations, our system minimizes the time required to search the whole area and guarantees that each road will be searched at least once. We first formulate the k-Person Search Problem for k mobile devices and prove that the problem is NP-Hard. To find the optimal solutions, we propose a centralized algorithm for a special case and an Integer Linear Programming formulation for general cases. We also devise an approximation algorithm. The algorithms can be used to dispatch the searchers before the operation starts. Moreover, to support online adaptation, we formulate the Path Refinement Problem for path exchange among searchers and propose a distributed algorithm to adaptively adjust the paths after the search starts. We also implement the proposed algorithms in mobile devices as a collaborative and distributed search system and demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithms with computation simulations and field trials.

In this paper, we propose a new data broadcast mechanism with network coding in heterogeneous wireless networks. Our mechanism adaptively clusters the mobile hosts in fewer cells to minimize the bandwidth consumption. In addition, we adaptively code the data according to the data temporarily stored in each mobile host with a distributed manner. Our mechanism allows each delivered message to be coded from only a subset of data to further reduce the number of required messages. We formulate the cell selection and broadcast coding problem with integer programming and prove that the problem is NP-hard. We design a distributed algorithm based on Lagrangean relaxation. Our algorithm needs no server to record the location, queried, and stored information of receivers. Moreover, our algorithm is adaptive to the dynamic group membership, mobility, queried, and stored data of receivers.

In this paper, we propose a bandwidth-efficient multicast mechanism for heterogeneous wireless networks. We reduce the bandwidth cost of an Internet protocol (IP) multicast tree by adaptively selecting the cell and the wireless technology for each mobile host to join the multicast group. Our mechanism enables more mobile hosts to cluster together and leads to the use of fewer cells to save the scarce wireless bandwidth. Besides, the paths in the multicast tree connecting to the selected cells share more common links to save the wireline bandwidth. Our mechanism supports the dynamic group membership and offers mobility of group members. Moreover, our mechanism requires no modification to the current IP multicast routing protocols. We formulate the selection of the cell and the wireless technology for each mobile host in the heterogeneous wireless networks as an optimization problem. We use integer linear programming to model the problem and show that the problem is NP-hard. To solve the problem, we propose a distributed algorithm based on Lagrangean relaxation and a network protocol based on the algorithm. The simulation results show that our mechanism can effectively save the wireless and wireline bandwidth as compared to the traditional IP multicast.

In this paper, we propose a new mechanism to select the cells and the wireless technologies for layer-encoded video multicasting in the heterogeneous wireless networks. Different from the previous mechanisms, each mobile host in our mechanism can select a different cell with a different wireless technology to subscribe each layer of a video stream, and each cell can deliver only a subset of layers of the video stream to reduce the bandwidth consumption. We formulate the Cell and Technology Selection Problem (CTSP) to multicast each layer of a video stream as an optimization problem. We use Integer Linear Programming to model the problem and show that the problem is NP-hard. To solve the problem, we propose a distributed algorithm based on Lagrangean relaxation and a protocol based on the proposed algorithm. Our mechanism requires no change of the current video multicasting mechanisms and the current wireless network infrastructures. Our algorithm is adaptive not only to the change of the subscribers at each layer, but also the change of the locations of each mobile host.