An Extended Network Coding Opportunity Discovery Scheme in Wireless Networks

Network coding is known as a promising approach to improve wireless network performance. How to discover the coding opportunity in relay nodes is really important for it. There are more coding chances, there are more times it can improve network throughput by network coding operation. In this paper, an extended network coding opportunity discovery scheme (ExCODE) is proposed, which is realized by appending the current node ID and all its 1-hop neighbors' IDs to the packet. ExCODE enables the next hop relay node to know which nodes else have already overheard the packet, so it can discover the potential coding opportunities as much as possible. ExCODE expands the region of discovering coding chance to n-hops, and have more opportunities to execute network coding operation in each relay node. At last, we implement ExCODE over the AODV protocol, and efficiency of the proposed mechanism is demonstrated with NS2 simulations, compared to the existing coding opportunity discovery scheme.Comment: 15 pages and 7 figure

Network coding: performance analysis and robust design in multi-hop wireless mesh networks

Network coding is an innovative idea to boost the capacity of wireless networks. However, there are not enough analytical studies on throughput and end-to-end delay of network coding in multi-hop wireless mesh network that incorporates the specifications of IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function. In this dissertation, we utilize queuing theory to propose an analytical framework for bidirectional unicast flows in multi-hop wireless mesh networks. We study the throughput and end-to-end delay of inter-flow network coding under the IEEE 802.11 standard with CSMA/CA random access and exponential back-o↵ time considering clock freezing and virtual carrier sensing, and formulate several parameters such as the probability of successful transmission in terms of bit error rate and collision probability, waiting time of packets at nodes, and retransmission mechanism. Our model uses a multi-class queuing network with stable queues, where coded packets have a non-preemptive higher priority over native packets, and forwarding of native packets is not delayed if no coding opportunities are available. The accuracy of our analytical model is verified using computer simulations. Furthermore, while inter-flow network coding is proposed to help wireless networks approach the maximum capacity, the majority of research conducted in this area is yet to fully utilize the broadcast nature of wireless networks, and to perform e↵ectively under poor channel quality. This vulnerability is mostly caused by assuming fixed route between the source and destination that every packet should travel through. This assumption not only limits coding opportunities, but can also cause bu↵er overflow at some specific intermediate nodes. Although some studies considered scattering of the flows dynamically in the network, they still face some limitations. This dissertation explains pros and cons of some prominent research in network coding and proposes a Flexible and Opportunistic Network Coding scheme (FlexONC) as a solution to such issues. Moreover, this research discovers that the conditions used in previous studies to combine packets of di↵erent flows are overly optimistic and would a↵ect the network performance adversarially. Therefore, we provide a more accurate set of rules for packet encoding. The experimental results show that FlexONC outperforms previous methods especially in networks with high bit error rates, by better utilizing redundant packets permeating the network, and benefiting from precise coding conditions