Diversity analysis, code design, and tight error rate lower bound for binary joint network-channel coding

Joint network-channel codes (JNCC) can improve the performance of communication in wireless networks, by combining, at the physical layer, the channel codes and the network code as an overall error-correcting code. JNCC is increasingly proposed as an alternative to a standard layered construction, such as the OSI-model. The main performance metrics for JNCCs are scalability to larger networks and error rate. The diversity order is one of the most important parameters determining the error rate. The literature on JNCC is growing, but a rigorous diversity analysis is lacking, mainly because of the many degrees of freedom in wireless networks, which makes it very hard to prove general statements on the diversity order. In this article, we consider a network with slowly varying fading point-to-point links, where all sources also act as relay and additional non-source relays may be present. We propose a general structure for JNCCs to be applied in such network. In the relay phase, each relay transmits a linear transform of a set of source codewords. Our main contributions are the proposition of an upper and lower bound on the diversity order, a scalable code design and a new lower bound on the word error rate to assess the performance of the network code. The lower bound on the diversity order is only valid for JNCCs where the relays transform only two source codewords. We then validate this analysis with an example which compares the JNCC performance to that of a standard layered construction. Our numerical results suggest that as networks grow, it is difficult to perform significantly better than a standard layered construction, both on a fundamental level, expressed by the outage probability, as on a practical level, expressed by the word error rate

DMT Optimal Cooperative Protocols with Destination-Based Selection of the Best Relay

We design a cooperative protocol in the context of wireless mesh networks in order to increase the reliability of wireless links. Destination terminals ask for cooperation when they fail in decoding data frames transmitted by source terminals. In that case, each destination terminal D calls a specific relay terminal B with a signaling frame to help its transmission with source terminal S. To select appropriate relays, destination terminals maintain tables of relay terminals, one for each possible source address. These tables are constituted by passively overhearing ongoing transmissions. Hence, when cooperation is needed between S and D, and when a relay B is found by terminal D in the relay table associated with terminal S, the destination terminal sends a negative acknowledgment frame that contains the address of B. When the best relay B has successfully decoded the source message, it sends a copy of the data frame to D using a selective decode-andforward transmission scheme. The on-demand approach allows maximization of the spatial multiplexing gain and the cooperation of the best relay allows maximization of the spatial diversity order. Hence, the proposed protocol achieves optimal diversitymultiplexing trade-off performance. Moreover, this performance is achieved through a collision-free selection process

Outage Capacity of Incremental Relaying at Low Signal-to-Noise Ratios

We present the \epsilon-outage capacity of incremental relaying at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) in a wireless cooperative network with slow Rayleigh fading channels. The relay performs decode-and-forward and repetition coding is employed in the network, which is optimal in the low SNR regime. We derive an expression on the optimal relay location that maximizes the \epsilon-outage capacity. It is shown that this location is independent of the outage probability and SNR but only depends on the channel conditions represented by a path-loss factor. We compare our results to the \epsilon-outage capacity of the cut-set bound and demonstrate that the ratio between the \epsilon-outage capacity of incremental relaying and the cut-set bound lies within 1/\sqrt{2} and 1. Furthermore, we derive lower bounds on the \epsilon-outage capacity for the case of K relays.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be presented at VTC Fall 2009 in Anchorage, Alask

When Network Coding and Dirty Paper Coding meet in a Cooperative Ad Hoc Network

We develop and analyze new cooperative strategies for ad hoc networks that are more spectrally efficient than classical DF cooperative protocols. Using analog network coding, our strategies preserve the practical half-duplex assumption but relax the orthogonality constraint. The introduction of interference due to non-orthogonality is mitigated thanks to precoding, in particular Dirty Paper coding. Combined with smart power allocation, our cooperation strategies allow to save time and lead to more efficient use of bandwidth and to improved network throughput with respect to classical RDF/PDF.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure