Spread spectrum visual sensor network resource management using an end-to-end cross-layer design

In this paper, we propose an approach to manage network resources for a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) visual sensor network where nodes monitor scenes with varying levels of motion. It uses cross-layer optimization across the physical layer, the link layer, and the application layer. Our technique simultaneously assigns a source coding rate, a channel coding rate, and a power level to all nodes in the network based on one of two criteria that maximize the quality of video of the entire network as a whole, subject to a constraint on the total chip rate. One criterion results in the minimal average end-to-end distortion amongst all nodes, while the other criterion minimizes the maximum distortion of the network. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the cross-layer optimization.