Managing Video Streaming in Tactical Networks

Tactical networks are by nature resource constrained and unable to handle the bandwidth intensive task of streaming video. Nevertheless, tactical users often desire video streaming as in some cases, it can significantly enhance Situation Awareness. Hence, solutions capable of managing and delivering video resources in degraded environments, especially while balancing out the bandwidth for delivering other critical information, are extremely valuable for tactical applications. In this paper we analyze challenges associated with streaming video in degraded networks and present NetCacher, a video streaming management system specifically designed to overcome these challenges. NetCacher is capable of real time adaptation, providing parallel streaming at different qualities, and caching and forwarding video resources to overcome limitations related to node mobility and network disconnection. This paper also presents an experiment conducted in a simulated environment, aimed at demonstrating adaptive dynamic transcoding and its effect on network stability and bandwidth management.