3 research outputs found
Path Gain Algebraic Formulation for the Scalar Linear Network Coding Problem
In the algebraic view, the solution to a network coding problem is seen as a
variety specified by a system of polynomial equations typically derived by
using edge-to-edge gains as variables. The output from each sink is equated to
its demand to obtain polynomial equations. In this work, we propose a method to
derive the polynomial equations using source-to-sink path gains as the
variables. In the path gain formulation, we show that linear and quadratic
equations suffice; therefore, network coding becomes equivalent to a system of
polynomial equations of maximum degree 2. We present algorithms for generating
the equations in the path gains and for converting path gain solutions to
edge-to-edge gain solutions. Because of the low degree, simplification is
readily possible for the system of equations obtained using path gains. Using
small-sized network coding problems, we show that the path gain approach
results in simpler equations and determines solvability of the problem in
certain cases. On a larger network (with 87 nodes and 161 edges), we show how
the path gain approach continues to provide deterministic solutions to some
network coding problems.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on
Information Theory (May 2010
Linear Network Coding for Two-Unicast- Networks: A Commutative Algebraic Perspective and Fundamental Limits
We consider a two-unicast- network over a directed acyclic graph of unit
capacitated edges; the two-unicast- network is a special case of two-unicast
networks where one of the destinations has apriori side information of the
unwanted (interfering) message. In this paper, we settle open questions on the
limits of network coding for two-unicast- networks by showing that the
generalized network sharing bound is not tight, vector linear codes outperform
scalar linear codes, and non-linear codes outperform linear codes in general.
We also develop a commutative algebraic approach to deriving linear network
coding achievability results, and demonstrate our approach by providing an
alternate proof to the previous results of C. Wang et. al., I. Wang et. al. and
Shenvi et. al. regarding feasibility of rate in the network.Comment: A short version of this paper is published in the Proceedings of The
IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), June 201