{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,10]],"date-time":"2026-02-10T18:24:06Z","timestamp":1770747846018,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"15","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,2]],"date-time":"2019-08-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1564704000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"the Project of Natural Science Foundations of China","award":["No. 91738201"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No. 91738201"]}]},{"name":"the Project of Natural Science Foundations of China","award":["No. 61401507"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No. 61401507"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100002858","name":"China Postdoctoral Science Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["No.2017M613403"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No.2017M613403"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100002858","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Video streaming has become a kind of main information carried by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Unlike single transmission, when a cluster of UAVs execute the real-time video shooting and uploading mission, the insufficiency of wireless channel resources will lead to bandwidth competition among them and the competition will bring bad watching experience to the audience. Therefore, how to allocate uplink bandwidth reasonably in the cluster has become a crucial problem. In this paper, an intelligent and distributed allocation mechanism is designed for improving users\u2019 video viewing satisfication. Each UAV in a cluster can independently adjust and select its video encoding rate so as to achieve flexible uplink allocation. This choice relies neither on the existence of the central node, nor on the large amount of information interaction between UAVs. Firstly, in order to distinguish video service from ordinary data, a utility function for the overall Quality of Experience (QoE) is proposed. Then, a potential game model is built around the problem. By a distributed self-learning algorithm with low complexity, all UAVs can iteratively update their own bandwidth strategy in a short time until equilibria, thus achieving the total quality optimization of all videos. Numeric simulation results indicate, after a few iterations, that the algorithm converges to a set of correlation equilibria. This mechanism not only solves the uplink allocation problem of video streaming in UAV cluster, but also guarantees the wireless resource providers in distinguishing and ensuring network service quality.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s19153394","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,2]],"date-time":"2019-08-02T11:58:16Z","timestamp":1564747096000},"page":"3394","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":17,"title":["A QoE-Oriented Uplink Allocation for Multi-UAV Video Streaming"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"19","author":[{"given":"Chao","family":"He","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Communications Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210007, China"},{"name":"National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology, Academy of Military Sciences of PLA, Beijing 100071, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhidong","family":"Xie","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Communications Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210007, China"},{"name":"National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology, Academy of Military Sciences of PLA, Beijing 100071, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chang","family":"Tian","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Communications Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210007, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12395","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2018.2804899","article-title":"3D Land Mapping and Land Deformation Monitoring Using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) ALOS PALSAR: Validated by Geodetic GPS and UAV","volume":"6","author":"Razi","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Alvear, O., Calafate, C.T., Zema, N.R., Natalizio, E., Hern\u00e1ndez-Orallo, E., Cano, J.-C., and Manzoni, P. (2018). A Discretized Approach to Air Pollution Monitoring Using UAV-based Sensing. Mob. Netw. Appl.","DOI":"10.1007\/s11036-018-1065-4"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"72","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2017.05.021","article-title":"Wireless Sensor Networks and Multi-UAV systems for natural disaster management","volume":"124","author":"Erdelj","year":"2017","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yu, C., Wang, J., Shan, J., and Xin, M. (2016, January 13\u201315). Multi-UAV UWA video surveillance system. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV), Phuket, Thailand.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICARCV.2016.7838810"},{"key":"ref_5","unstructured":"Brunnstr\u00f6m, K., Beker, S.A., Moor, K.D., Dooms, A., Egger, S., Garcia, M.N., Hossfeld, T., Jumiskopyykk\u00f6, S., Keimel, C., and Larabi, M.C. (2013, March 12). Qualinet White Paper on Definitions of Quality of Experience. Available online: https:\/\/hal.archives-ouvertes.fr\/hal-00977812\/."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"30831","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2901778","article-title":"QoE Modeling for HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming\u2013A Survey and Open Challenges","volume":"7","author":"Barman","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"285","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2016.2619982","article-title":"QoE in Video Transmission: A User Experience-Driven Strategy","volume":"19","author":"Zhao","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hemmati, M., Yassine, A., and Shirmohammadi, S. (2014, January 15\u201317). An online learning approach to QoE-fair distributed rate allocation in multi-user video streaming. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication Systems (ICSPCS), Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICSPCS.2014.7021057"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"988","DOI":"10.1109\/TCSVT.2014.2367355","article-title":"QoE-Based Traffic and Resource Management for Adaptive HTTP Video Delivery in LTE","volume":"25","author":"Essaili","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2524","DOI":"10.1109\/JSYST.2015.2430893","article-title":"QoE-Oriented Rate Allocation for Multipath High-Definition Video Streaming Over Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks","volume":"11","author":"Deng","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Syst. J."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Elgabli, A., Elghariani, A., Aggarwal, V., and Bell, M. (2018, January 9\u201313). QoE-Aware Resource Allocation for Small Cells. Proceedings of the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.","DOI":"10.1109\/GLOCOM.2018.8647828"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liu, X., Liu, Y., and Chen, Y. (2019). Reinforcement Learning in Multiple-UAV Networks: Deployment and Movement Design. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., 1.","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2019.2922849"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"68656","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2919290","article-title":"A QoE-Oriented Scheduling Scheme for Energy-Efficient Computation Offloading in UAV Cloud System","volume":"7","author":"Gao","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Colonnese, S., Cuomo, F., Pagliari, G., and Chiaraviglio, L. (2019). Q-SQUARE: A Q-learning approach to provide a QoE aware UAV flight path in cellular networks. Ad Hoc Netw., 101872.","DOI":"10.1016\/j.adhoc.2019.101872"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"498","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2018.2885539","article-title":"A Survey on Cluster-Based Routing Protocols for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Networks","volume":"7","author":"Arafat","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1123","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2015.2495297","article-title":"Survey of Important Issues in UAV Communication Networks","volume":"18","author":"Gupta","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"428","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2015.2497712","article-title":"Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation for D2D Communications Underlaying Cloud-RAN-Based LTE-A Networks","volume":"3","author":"Zhou","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Int. Things J."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cumino, P., Lobato Junior, W., Tavares, T., Santos, H., Ros\u00e1rio, D., Cerqueira, E., Villas, L.A., and Gerla, M. (2018). Cooperative UAV Scheme for Enhancing Video Transmission and Global Network Energy Efficiency. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18124155"},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"33","DOI":"10.23919\/j.cc.2019.05.003","article-title":"Joint resource allocation and admission control mechanism in software defined mobile networks","volume":"16","author":"Chen","year":"2019","journal-title":"China Commun."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Duan, R., Wang, J., Jiang, C., Yao, H., Ren, Y., and Qian, Y. (2019). Resource Allocation for Multi-UAV Aided IoT NOMA Uplink Transmission Systems. IEEE Int. Things J., 1.","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2019.2913473"},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gong, J., Lin, J., Chang, T., Shen, C., and Chen, X. (2018, January 18\u201320). Distributed Power Allocation for UAV-Assisted Multi-User Relay Networks. Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks Digital Signal Processing (CSNDSP), Budapest, Hungary.","DOI":"10.1109\/CSNDSP.2018.8471760"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1663","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2018.2873308","article-title":"A Game Theory Approach for Joint Access Selection and Resource Allocation in UAV Assisted IoT Communication Networks","volume":"6","author":"Yan","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Int. Things J."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"48566","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2018.2868117","article-title":"Trajectory Optimization and Power Allocation for Multi-Hop UAV Relaying Communications","volume":"6","author":"Zhang","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3806","DOI":"10.1109\/TCOMM.2019.2896973","article-title":"Joint Position and Time Allocation Optimization of UAV Enabled Time Allocation Optimization Networks","volume":"67","author":"Jiang","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Commun."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"260","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2018.2863030","article-title":"Game Theory for Multi-Access Edge Computing: Survey, Use Cases, and Future Trends","volume":"21","author":"Moura","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"183","DOI":"10.1109\/TMM.2017.2724850","article-title":"Cooperative Bargaining Game-Based Multiuser Bandwidth Allocation for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming Over HTTP","volume":"20","author":"Yuan","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Multimed."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ruan, L., Chen, J., Guo, Q., Jiang, H., Zhang, Y., and Liu, D. (2018). A Coalition Formation Game Approach for Efficient Cooperative Multi-UAV Deployment. Appl. Sci., 8.","DOI":"10.20944\/preprints201809.0132.v1"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dong, C., and Wen, W. (2019). Joint Optimization for Task Offloading in Edge Computing: An Evolutionary Game Approach. Sensors, 19.","DOI":"10.3390\/s19030740"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liu, B., Xu, H., and Zhou, X. (2018). Stackelberg Dynamic Game-Based Resource Allocation in Threat Defense for Internet of Things. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18114074"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6805","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2019.2918336","article-title":"Interference Mitigation and Power Allocation Scheme for Downlink MIMO-NOMA HetNet","volume":"68","author":"Nasser","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zhu, K., Niyato, D., and Wang, P. (2010, January 6\u201310). Optimal Bandwidth Allocation with Dynamic Service Selection in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks. Proceedings of the IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference GLOBECOM 2010, Miami, FL, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/GLOCOM.2010.5683238"},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"597","DOI":"10.1109\/TCCN.2018.2832619","article-title":"Joint Spectrum Allocation and Pricing for Cognitive Multi-Homing Networks","volume":"4","author":"Xu","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Cogn. Commun. Netw."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"143","DOI":"10.1006\/game.1996.0044","article-title":"Potential Games","volume":"14","author":"Monderer","year":"1996","journal-title":"Games Econ. Behav."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"646","DOI":"10.1109\/TMC.2014.2326673","article-title":"Spatial Spectrum Access Game","volume":"14","author":"Chen","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Mob. Comput."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ke, M., Li, D., Tian, S., Zhang, Y., Tong, K., and Xu, Y. (2018). Distributed Power Allocation for Wireless Sensor Network Localization: A Potential Game Approach. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18051480"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wu, D., Tian, Y., Wang, Y., and Wu, C. (2016, January 27\u201329). QoE-based distributed multichannel allocation in small-cell networks: A potential-matching game solution. Proceedings of the IEEE\/CIC International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC), Chengdu, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCChina.2016.7636840"},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"935","DOI":"10.1109\/JSAC.2017.2676598","article-title":"Spectrum Allocation and Bitrate Adjustment for Mobile Social Video Sharing: A Potential Game with Online QoS Learning Approach","volume":"35","author":"Hu","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lagkas, T., Argyriou, V., Bibi, S., and Sarigiannidis, P. (2018). UAV IoT Framework Views and Challenges: Towards Protecting Drones as \u201cThings\u201d. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18114015"},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Barman, N., Zadtootaghaj, S., Schmidt, S., Martini, M.G., and M\u00f6ller, S. (2018). An objective and subjective quality assessment study of passive gaming video streaming. Int. J. Netw. Manag., e2054.","DOI":"10.1145\/3210424.3210434"},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"800","DOI":"10.1049\/el:20080522","article-title":"Scope of validity of PSNR in image\/video quality assessment","volume":"44","author":"Ghanbari","year":"2008","journal-title":"Electron. Lett."},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"600","DOI":"10.1109\/TIP.2003.819861","article-title":"Image quality assessment: From error visibility to structural similarity","volume":"13","author":"Wang","year":"2004","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Image Process."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"335","DOI":"10.1109\/TIP.2009.2034992","article-title":"Motion Tuned Spatio-Temporal Quality Assessment of Natural Videos","volume":"19","author":"Seshadrinathan","year":"2010","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Image Process."},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"286","DOI":"10.1109\/TCSVT.2010.2087833","article-title":"Perceptual Quality Assessment of Video Considering Both Frame Rate and Quantization Artifacts","volume":"21","author":"Ou","year":"2011","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol."},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2473","DOI":"10.1109\/TIP.2014.2303636","article-title":"Q-STAR: A Perceptual Video Quality Model Considering Impact of Spatial, Temporal, and Amplitude Resolutions","volume":"23","author":"Ou","year":"2014","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Image Process."},{"key":"ref_45","first-page":"6","article-title":"MOS-based Multiuser Multiapplication Cross-layer Optimization for Mobile Multimedia Communication","volume":"2007","author":"Khan","year":"2007","journal-title":"Adv. MultiMed."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Thakolsri, S., Kellerer, W., and Steinbach, E. (2011, January 5\u20139). QoE-Based Cross-Layer Optimization of Wireless Video with Unperceivable Temporal Video Quality Fluctuation. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Kyoto, Japan.","DOI":"10.1109\/icc.2011.5963296"},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"587","DOI":"10.1109\/TCSVT.2010.2041829","article-title":"Wireless Video Quality Assessment: A Study of Subjective Scores and Objective Algorithms","volume":"20","author":"Moorthy","year":"2010","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol."},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1427","DOI":"10.1109\/TIP.2010.2042111","article-title":"Study of Subjective and Objective Quality Assessment of Video","volume":"19","author":"Seshadrinathan","year":"2010","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Image Process."},{"key":"ref_49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ma, L., Reznik, Y., Vanam, R., and Sternberg, G. (2013). Enabling QoE-based scheduling for video teleconferencing via PSNR time series prediction. Proc. SPIE, 8856.","DOI":"10.1117\/12.2026910"},{"key":"ref_50","first-page":"80","article-title":"QoE-aware video cooperative caching and transmission mechanism based on TWDM-PON and C-RAN","volume":"40","author":"Wu","year":"2019","journal-title":"J. Commun."},{"key":"ref_51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Choi, L.U., Ivrlac, M.T., Steinbach, E., and Nossek, J.A. (2005, January 14). Sequence-level models for distortion-rate behaviour of compressed video. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing 2005, Genova, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICIP.2005.1530098"},{"key":"ref_52","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"295","DOI":"10.1016\/S0165-1765(99)00196-2","article-title":"Best-response potential games","volume":"66","author":"Voorneveld","year":"2000","journal-title":"Econ. Lett."},{"key":"ref_53","unstructured":"Scutari, G., Barbarossa, S., and Palomar, D.P. (2006, January 14\u201319). Potential Games: A Framework for Vector Power Control Problems With Coupled Constraints. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing Proceedings, Toulouse, France."},{"key":"ref_54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1127","DOI":"10.1111\/1468-0262.00153","article-title":"A Simple Adaptive Procedure Leading to Correlated Equilibrium","volume":"68","author":"Hart","year":"2000","journal-title":"Econometrica"},{"key":"ref_55","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1170","DOI":"10.1109\/TMM.2009.2026101","article-title":"Multiuser rate allocation games for multimedia communications","volume":"11","author":"Chen","year":"2009","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Multimed."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/19\/15\/3394\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T13:12:39Z","timestamp":1760188359000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/19\/15\/3394"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,2]]},"references-count":55,"journal-issue":{"issue":"15","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,8]]}},"alternative-id":["s19153394"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s19153394","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,2]]}}}