Effective Scheduling for Coded Distributed Storage in Wireless Sensor Networks

A distributed storage approach is proposed to access data reliably and to cope with node failures in wireless sensor networks. This approach is based on random linear network coding in combination with a scheduling algorithm based on backpressure. Upper bounds are provided on the maximum rate at which data can be reliably stored. Moreover, it is shown that the backpressure algorithm allows to operate the network in a decentralized fashion for any rate below this maximum

Throughput-Optimal Multihop Broadcast on Directed Acyclic Wireless Networks

We study the problem of efficiently broadcasting packets in multi-hop wireless networks. At each time slot the network controller activates a set of non-interfering links and forwards selected copies of packets on each activated link. A packet is considered jointly received only when all nodes in the network have obtained a copy of it. The maximum rate of jointly received packets is referred to as the broadcast capacity of the network. Existing policies achieve the broadcast capacity by balancing traffic over a set of spanning trees, which are difficult to maintain in a large and time-varying wireless network. We propose a new dynamic algorithm that achieves the broadcast capacity when the underlying network topology is a directed acyclic graph (DAG). This algorithm is decentralized, utilizes local queue-length information only and does not require the use of global topological structures such as spanning trees. The principal technical challenge inherent in the problem is the absence of work-conservation principle due to the duplication of packets, which renders traditional queuing modelling inapplicable. We overcome this difficulty by studying relative packet deficits and imposing in-order delivery constraints to every node in the network. Although in-order packet delivery, in general, leads to degraded throughput in graphs with cycles, we show that it is throughput optimal in DAGs and can be exploited to simplify the design and analysis of optimal algorithms. Our characterization leads to a polynomial time algorithm for computing the broadcast capacity of any wireless DAG under the primary interference constraints. Additionally, we propose an extension of our algorithm which can be effectively used for broadcasting in any network with arbitrary topology

Infocast: A New Paradigm for Collaborative Content Distribution from Roadside Units to Vehicular Networks Using Rateless Codes

In this paper, we address the problem of distributing a large amount of bulk data to a sparse vehicular network from roadside infostations, using efficient vehicle-to-vehicle collaboration. Due to the highly dynamic nature of the underlying vehicular network topology, we depart from architectures requiring centralized coordination, reliable MAC scheduling, or global network state knowledge, and instead adopt a distributed paradigm with simple protocols. In other words, we investigate the problem of reliable dissemination from multiple sources when each node in the network shares a limited amount of its resources for cooperating with others. By using \emph{rateless} coding at the Road Side Unit (RSU) and using vehicles as data carriers, we describe an efficient way to achieve reliable dissemination to all nodes (even disconnected clusters in the network). In the nutshell, we explore vehicles as mobile storage devices. We then develop a method to keep the density of the rateless codes packets as a function of distance from the RSU at the desired level set for the target decoding distance. We investigate various tradeoffs involving buffer size, maximum capacity, and the mobility parameter of the vehicles

Throughput-Optimal Broadcast on Directed Acyclic Graphs

We study the problem of broadcasting packets in wireless networks. At each time slot, a network controller activates non-interfering links and forwards packets to all nodes at a common rate; the maximum rate is referred to as the broadcast capacity of the wireless network. Existing policies achieve the broadcast capacity by balancing traffic over a set of spanning trees, which are difficult to maintain in a large and time-varying wireless network. We propose a new dynamic algorithm that achieves the broadcast capacity when the underlying network topology is a directed acyclic graph (DAG). This algorithm utilizes local queue-length information, does not use any global topological structures such as spanning trees, and uses the idea of in-order packet delivery to all network nodes. Although the in-order packet delivery constraint leads to degraded throughput in cyclic graphs, we show that it is throughput optimal in DAGs and can be exploited to simplify the design and analysis of optimal algorithms. Our simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has superior delay performance as compared to tree-based approaches.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of INFOCOM, 201

On distributed scheduling in wireless networks exploiting broadcast and network coding

In this paper, we consider cross-layer optimization in wireless networks with wireless broadcast advantage, focusing on the problem of distributed scheduling of broadcast links. The wireless broadcast advantage is most useful in multicast scenarios. As such, we include network coding in our design to exploit the throughput gain brought in by network coding for multicasting. We derive a subgradient algorithm for joint rate control, network coding and scheduling, which however requires centralized link scheduling. Under the primary interference model, link scheduling problem is equivalent to a maximum weighted hypergraph matching problem that is NP-complete. To solve the scheduling problem distributedly, locally greedy and randomized approximation algorithms are proposed and shown to have bounded worst-case performance. With random network coding, we obtain a fully distributed cross-layer design. Numerical results show promising throughput gain using the proposed algorithms, and surprisingly, in some cases even with less complexity than cross-layer design without broadcast advantage

Wireless Broadcast with Physical-Layer Network Coding

This work investigates the maximum broadcast throughput and its achievability in multi-hop wireless networks with half-duplex node constraint. We allow the use of physical-layer network coding (PNC). Although the use of PNC for unicast has been extensively studied, there has been little prior work on PNC for broadcast. Our specific results are as follows: 1) For single-source broadcast, the theoretical throughput upper bound is n/(n+1), where n is the "min vertex-cut" size of the network. 2) In general, the throughput upper bound is not always achievable. 3) For grid and many other networks, the throughput upper bound n/(n+1) is achievable. Our work can be considered as an attempt to understand the relationship between max-flow and min-cut in half-duplex broadcast networks with cycles (there has been prior work on networks with cycles, but not half-duplex broadcast networks).Comment: 23 pages, 18 figures, 6 table

Tiny Codes for Guaranteeable Delay

Future 5G systems will need to support ultra-reliable low-latency communications scenarios. From a latency-reliability viewpoint, it is inefficient to rely on average utility-based system design. Therefore, we introduce the notion of guaranteeable delay which is the average delay plus three standard deviations of the mean. We investigate the trade-off between guaranteeable delay and throughput for point-to-point wireless erasure links with unreliable and delayed feedback, by bringing together signal flow techniques to the area of coding. We use tiny codes, i.e. sliding window by coding with just 2 packets, and design three variations of selective-repeat ARQ protocols, by building on the baseline scheme, i.e. uncoded ARQ, developed by Ausavapattanakun and Nosratinia: (i) Hybrid ARQ with soft combining at the receiver; (ii) cumulative feedback-based ARQ without rate adaptation; and (iii) Coded ARQ with rate adaptation based on the cumulative feedback. Contrasting the performance of these protocols with uncoded ARQ, we demonstrate that HARQ performs only slightly better, cumulative feedback-based ARQ does not provide significant throughput while it has better average delay, and Coded ARQ can provide gains up to about 40% in terms of throughput. Coded ARQ also provides delay guarantees, and is robust to various challenges such as imperfect and delayed feedback, burst erasures, and round-trip time fluctuations. This feature may be preferable for meeting the strict end-to-end latency and reliability requirements of future use cases of ultra-reliable low-latency communications in 5G, such as mission-critical communications and industrial control for critical control messaging.Comment: to appear in IEEE JSAC Special Issue on URLLC in Wireless Network