Fuzzy-Logic Congestion Control of Transcoded Video Streaming Without Packet Loss Feedback

Congestion control of a variable bit-rate video stream crossing the Internet is crucial to ensuring the quality of the received video. When a fuzzy-logic congestion controller (FLC) changes the sending rate of a video transcoder, it does so without feedback of packet loss, using packet dispersion instead. Compared with the well-known TFRC and RAP controllers, the FLC's sending rate is significantly smoother, allowing it to more closely take up available bandwidth at a bottleneck link. There is an accompanying order of magnitude reduction in packet losses. Due to better utilization of the available bandwidth, video quality is improved over time by several decibels in low-packet-loss conditions. The strength of the FLC solution is demonstrated by the resulting video quality when typical Web traffic forms the background traffic. The FLC avoids any risk of congestion collapse through fairness to coexisting TCP flows and is robust to changes in path delay and router buffer configuration.