Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Chong Luo

Feng Wu

Jiang Tao Li

Hao Cui

Chang Wen Chen

Wenwu Zhu

Jian Tang

Wei Pu

Lie Liu

Shipeng Li

Hua Cai

Jian-guang Lou

Yusuo Hu

Wenjun Zeng

Kun Tan

Cuiling Lan

Ruiqin Xiong

Han Cheng Lu

Changwen Chen

Dongliang He

Techniques for configuring and operating a multimedia aware cloud, particularly configured for mobile device computing, are described herein. In some instances, clusters of servers are organized for general computing, graphic computing and data storage. A load balancing server may be configured to: identify multimedia types currently being processed within the multimedia edge cloud; determine desired quality of service levels for each identified multimedia type; evaluate individual abilities of devices communicating with the multimedia edge cloud; and assess bandwidth of each network over which the multimedia edge cloud communicates with a mobile device. With that information, multimedia data may be adapted accordingly, to result in an acceptable quality of service level when delivered to a specific mobile device. In one example of the techniques, graphic computing server clusters may be configured to process workload using a configuration that includes elements of both parallel and serial computing.

Multimedia aware cloud for mobile device computing

In accordance with implementations of the subject matter described herein, a hybrid digital-analog coding scheme is proposed. In general, in accordance with implementations of the subject matter described herein, digital or analog encoding is selected at a level of chunks of a frame rather than at a level of the whole frame. Further, the encoding of a chunk is based on an expected distortion to be caused by analog transmission of the chunk over a communication channel, the distortion being estimated based on a constraint on available transmission resources over the transmission channel.

Hybrid digital-analog coding

In this disclosure, a hybrid digital-analog video coding scheme is described. For a video including at least two associated sequences of frames such as a stereo video, some of the frames are digitally encoded, while the others are encoded in an analog way with reference to the digital frames. For an analog frame, a previous frame in the same sequence/view and a temporally consistent frame in another sequence/view will be encoded as digital frames. These two digital frames are used to provide side information in encoding the analog frame. At decoding side, inverse operations are performed. Such 'zigzag' hybrid coding significantly improves the coding efficiency while providing robustness and good visual quality.

Hybrid digital-analog coding of stereo video

A multiplexed space-time block coding (M-STBC) scheme is described that allows for transmitting a single multicast transmission in a heterogeneous MIMO (i.e., multiple-input and multiple-output) environment, where receivers with fewer antennas can receive a lower resolution version of the multi-cast transmission, while receivers with a greater number of antennas can receive a higher resolution version of the multi-cast transmission. Thus, the M-STBC scheme allows for transmitting the single multicast transmission that includes both a spatial multiplexing mode and a diversity mode.

Spatial scalable video multicast for heterogeneous MIMO systems

Scaled video for pseudo-analog transmission in the spatial domain is described. Boundaries are determined for M L-shaped chunks of coefficients of at least one frequency-transformed video frame of a group of pictures (GOP). The boundaries are determined based at least on variances of the coefficients of the M L-shaped chunks, such as by reducing or minimizing the sum of the square roots of the variances of the coefficients. Corresponding power scale factors for the M L-shaped chunks are determined based at least partly on the variances of the coefficients of the M L-shaped chunks, and the coefficients of the M L-shaped chunks are scaled using the corresponding power scale factors. The pixel values of the frames (e.g., the frames in the spatial domain) are transmitted on a pseudo-analog channel. At the receiver, retained spatial redundancy enables denoising in the spatial domain prior to de-scaling in the frequency domain.

Scaled video for pseudo-analog transmission in spatial domain

Multi-level symbols generated by applying a Random Projection Code (RPC) to a source bit sequence are received at a receiver via a noisy channel. The received multi-level symbols are represented in a bipartite graph as constraint nodes connected via weighted edges to binary variable nodes that represent the source bit sequence. A decoder uses ZigZag deconvolution to generate constraint node messages as part of an iterative belief propagation to decode the source bit sequence from the received multi-level symbols.

Fast decoding based on ZigZag deconvolution for random projection code

Techniques for data gathering in large-scale wireless sensor networks are described. A data collection device receives aggregate data from at least one sensor node of a group of N sensor nodes. The aggregate data includes M weighted sums. Each of the M weighted sums includes a respective sum of N products each of which being a product of a respective coefficient and a sensor reading from a respective one of the N sensor nodes. M and N are positive integers and M is less than N. Computation is performed on the aggregate data to recover sensor readings from the N sensor nodes.

Compressive data gathering for large-scale wireless sensor networks

A projection code is applied to encode symbols as weighted arithmetic sums of approximately random subsets of binary source bits. Pairs of the symbols are combined to form constellation points, which are sequentially mapped through a constellation to modulate a data signal.

Compressive wireless modulation

Described is a technology by which a roadside-to-vehicle communication system may be implemented, including via a stateful scheduling with network coding scheme that enhances network capacity. Moving vehicles request and receive data from a roadside access points. Each of the access points operate a stateful scheduling algorithm that serves multiple vehicles by integrating network coding within a timeslot. In one aspect, the state of each vehicle's previously received and retained data is obtained, and used to enhance network capacity by combining as many packets as possible for multiple recipients in network coding.

Stateful scheduling with network coding for roadside-to-vehicle communication

A network can include a number of nodes that link a source node to a sink node. When a first node in a network sends a packet to its downstream node, this information is also received at its upstream node. In response to learning that the first node has sent a packet, the upstream node sends another packet to the first node. In essence, a pull-based transmission approach is used to mitigate congestion and address the funneling effect in data transmission networks such as wireless video sensor networks.

Pull-based data transmission approach

Systems and methods are described for implementing an application-level routing protocol for multiparty audio-video conferencing. In one implementation, application-level per-stream routing techniques separately control audio data and video data between conference members hosted on a network. Different audio application-level multicast (ALM) trees are generated by each member, are dynamically updated according to shortest-path-first selection of data delivery paths, and are used to send audio data to the other members of the videoconference. Likewise, different video ALM trees are generated by each member, are dynamically updated according to broadest-path-first selection of data delivery paths, and are used to send video data to the other members of the videoconference. Separate audio and video ALM trees for each member can utilize IP multicast in segments of the network in which IP multicast is enabled.

Application-level routing protocol for multiparty audio-video conferencing

Described herein is technology for, among other things, natural network coding in a wireless mesh network. The technology involves wireless mesh network systems, methods and devices based on the natural network coding. By encoding signals in their natural forms using their channel strengths, more efficient transmission of signals is possible in the wireless mesh network.

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Beijing, China

Chong Luo