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

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

Periodic wireless broadcast

A periodic wireless data transmission has improved access latency obtaining information regarding users' interest in the information and by arranging the information on an transmission in order of descending popularity. In one embodiment, each adjacent pair of topics on the transmission. The topics' positions on the transmission are exchanged if the exchange decreases the average latency for all users. This may be repeated for all of the topics on the transmission. The transmission structure may also be arranged so that the transmission combines a number of transmission channels to obtain greater aggregate capacity. This may be done using, for example, an FDMA transmission structured to be theoretically comparable to a plurality of “striped” disks known as a RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks).Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Wireless Broadcast with Network Coding in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks: DRAGONCAST

Network coding is a recently proposed method for transmitting data, which has been shown to have potential to improve wireless network performance. We study network coding for one specific case of multicast, broadcasting, from one source to all nodes of the network. We use network coding as a loss tolerant, energy-efficient, method for broadcast. Our emphasis is on mobile networks. Our contribution is the proposal of DRAGONCAST, a protocol to perform network coding in such a dynamically evolving environment. It is based on three building blocks: a method to permit real-time decoding of network coding, a method to adjust the network coding transmission rates, and a method for ensuring the termination of the broadcast. The performance and behavior of the method are explored experimentally by simulations; they illustrate the excellent performance of the protocol

Hamiltonian cycles in faulty random geometric networks

In this paper we analyze the Hamiltonian properties of faulty random networks. This consideration is of interest when considering wireless broadcast networks. A random geometric network is a graph whose vertices correspond to points uniformly and independently distributed in the unit square, and whose edges connect any pair of vertices if their distance is below some specified bound. A faulty random geometric network is a random geometric network whose vertices or edges fail at random. Algorithms to find Hamiltonian cycles in faulty random geometric networks are presented.Postprint (published version