Fairness Issues in Resource Allocation Schemes for Wireless Visual Sensor Networks

摘要

This work addresses the problem of fairness and efficiency evaluation of various resource allocation schemes for wireless visual sensor networks (VSNs). These schemes are used to optimally allocate the source coding rates, channel coding rates, and power levels among the nodes of a wireless direct sequence code division multiple access (DS–CDMA) VSN. All of the considered schemes optimize a function of the video qualities of the nodes. However, there is no single scheme that maximizes the video quality of each node simultaneously. In fact, all presented schemes are able to provide a Pareto–optimal solution, meaning that there is no other solution that is simultaneously preferred by all nodes. Thus, it is not clear which scheme results in the best resource allocation for the whole network. To handle the resulting tradeoffs, in this study we examine four metrics that investigate fairness and efficiency under different perspectives. Specifically, we apply a metric that considers both fairness and performance issues, and another metric that measures the "equality" of a resource allocation (equal utilities for the nodes). The third metric computes the total system utility, while the last metric computes the total power consumption of the nodes. Ideally, a desirable scheme would achieve high total utility while being equally fair to all nodes and requiring low amounts of power.