In this paper, we present a genetic ATM-based multicode code division multi
ple access (CDMA) transport architecture for the Motion Picture Experts Gro
up phase 2 (MPEG-2) compressed video sen ices over a bandlimited mobile cha
nnel with the emphasis of wireless asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cell de
sign, spreading code management, and the impact of CDMA systems on the vide
o services. Such services allow users to share novel MPEG-2 video applicati
ons without any geographical restrictions. The ATM technique is especially
well suited for variable bit rate (VBR) MPEG-2 video because of its ability
to allocate bandwidth on demand to these services. However, since the mobi
le radio has a limited channel capacity, the over-all capacity of the tradi
tional ATM-based CDMA system may not be sufficient to accommodate the MPEG-
2 video services requested by the multiple mobile users simultaneously. To
tackle this difficulty, a multicode CDMA technique is proposed to provide m
ultiple VER MPEG-2 video services by varying the number of spreading codes
assigned to each MPEG-2 video in order to meet its dynamic throughput requi
rement. Moreover, both the multipath fading and interference CDMA radio cha
nnels tend to cause significant transmission error and IMPEG-2 bit streams
are very vulnerable to these errors. Powerful forward error correction (FEC
) codes are therefore necessary to protect the video data so that it can be
successfully transmitted at acceptable signal power levels. Two separate F
EC code schemes are applied to the header and payload of an ATM cell contai
ning MPEG-2 video data, respectively. The ATM cell header is protected by a
relatively powerful FEC code to ensure the low average cell loss I are (CL
R). On the other hand, the ATM cell payload is encoded for varying degrees
of error protection according to bath the priority and statistical behavior
of the payload data in MPEG-2 videos. An adaptive FEC code combining schem
e is proposed to provide the good protection for payload data with the maxi
mization of its code rate in order to minimize the extra bandwidth for FEC
overhead. Two typical MPEG-2 test sequences are conducted to evaluate the e
ffectiveness of our system.