Network coding for multiple unicast sessions in multi-channel/interface wireless networks

Throughput limitation of wireless networks imposes many practical problems as a result of wireless media broadcast nature. The solutions of the problem are mainly categorized in two groups; the use of multiple orthogonal channels and network coding (NC). The networks with multiple orthogonal channels and possibly multiple interfaces can mitigate co-channel interference among nodes. However, efficient assignment of channels to the available network interfaces is a major problem for network designers. Existing heuristic and theoretical work unanimously focused on joint design of channel assignment with the conventional transport/IP/MAC architecture. Furthermore, NC has been a prominent approach to improve the throughput of unicast traffic in wireless multi-hop networks through opportunistic NC. In this paper we seek a collaboration scheme for NC in multi-channel/interface wireless networks, i.e., the integration of NC, routing and channel assignment problem. First, we extend the NC for multiple unicast sessions to involve both COPE-type and a new proposed scheme named as Star-NC. Then, we propose an analytical framework that jointly optimizes the problem of routing, channel assignment and NC. Our theoretical formulation via a linear programming provides a method for finding source–destination routes and utilizing the best choices of different NC schemes to maximize the aggregate throughput. Through this LP, we propose a novel channel assignment algorithm that is aware of both coding opportunities and co-channel interference. Finally, we evaluate our model for various networks, traffic models, routing and coding strategies over coding-oblivious routing.     

Optimized multipath network coding in lossy wireless networks

Network coding has been a prominent approach to a series of problems that used to be considered intractable with traditional transmission paradigms. Recent work on network coding includes a substantial number of optimization based protocols, but mostly for wireline multicast networks. In this paper, we consider maximizing the benefits of network coding for unicast sessions in lossy wireless environments. We propose Optimized Multipath Network Coding (OMNC), a rate control protocol that dramatically improves the throughput of lossy wireless networks. OMNC employs multiple paths to push coded packets to the destination, and uses the broadcast MAC to deliver packets between neighboring nodes. The coding and broadcast rate is allocated to transmitters by a distributed optimization algorithm that maximizes the advantage of network coding while avoiding congestion. With extensive experiments on an emulation testbed, we find that OMNC achieves more than two-fold throughput increase on average compared to traditional best path routing, and significant improvement over existing multipath routing protocols with network coding. The performance improvement is notable not only for one unicast session, but also when multiple concurrent unicast sessions coexist in the network.     

Throughput and resource optimization for adaptive coding‐based random access networks with correlated sources

Modern wireless communication networks frequently have lower application throughput due to higher number of collisions and subsequent retransmission of data packets. Moreover, these networks are characterized by restricted computational capacity due to limited node‐battery power. These challenges can be assessed for deploying fast, reliable network design with resource‐restrained operation by means of concurrent optimization of multiple performance parameters across different layers of the conventional protocol stack. This optimization can be efficiently accomplished via cross‐layer design with the aid of network coding technique and optimal allocation of limited resources to wireless links. In this paper, we evaluate and analyze intersession coding across several source–destination pairs in random access ad hoc networks with inherent power scarcity and variable capacity links. The proposed work addresses the problem of joint optimal coding, rate control, power control, contention, and flow control schemes for multi‐hop heterogeneous networks with correlated sources. For this, we employ cross‐layer design for multiple unicast sessions in the system with network coding and bandwidth constraints. This model is elucidated for global optimal solution using CVX software through disciplined convex programming technique to find the improved throughput and power allocation. Simulation results show that the proposed model effectively incorporates throughput and link power management while satisfying flow conservation, bit error rate, data compression, power outage, and capacity constraints of the challenged wireless networks. Finally, we compare our model with three previous algorithms to demonstrate its efficacy and superiority in terms of various performance metrics such as transmission success probability, throughput, power efficiency, and delay.     

Active intersession network coding-aware routing

Coding-aware routing can create more coding opportunities by selecting the proper routing path. The main challenge in exploiting network coding is how to develop an effective network coding conditions. In this paper, we develop the active intersession network coding (AINC) which can create more intersession network coding opportunities than the general intersession network coding (GINC) by actively exploiting the redundancy information in the network with the deliberately built bridge links. With the aim to find multiple candidate parallel paths for each unicast, the conventional Bellman–Ford algorithm is enhanced. Built on AINC and the enhanced Bellman-Ford algorithm, we propose the active intersession network coding-aware routing (AINC-AR) scheme for the wireless network which supports multiple unicasts. The basic idea of AINC-AR is to select the path from all available candidate ones by jointly considering the effects of network coding gains and path costs on the overall network costs, so as to minimize the total network costs. Simulations are conducted to demonstrate the advantages of AINC-AR over GINC-AR and the conventional routing scheme without considering network coding.     

Star-Structure Network Coding for Multiple Unicast Sessions in Wireless Mesh Networks

In this paper, first, we propose Star-NC, a new network coding (NC) scheme for multiple unicast sessions in an n-input n-output star structure. Then, we evaluate the network throughput of this coding scheme in wireless mesh network over the traditional non-NC transmission. Our scheme benefits from the proximity of all the nodes around the relay node and employs a more general form of overhearing different from other schemes such as COPE. We found that the gain of our NC scheme depends on both the star size and the routing pattern of the unicast transmissions. Based on this, we identify both the situations which the maximum gain is achievable and a lower bound for the expected value of the gain in the case of random routing pattern. Next, we propose an analytical framework for studying throughput gain of our Star-NC scheme in general wireless network topologies. Our theoretical formulation via linear programming provides a method for finding source-destination routes and utilizing the best choices of our NC scheme to maximize the throughput. Finally, we evaluate our model for various networks, traffic models and routing strategies over coding-oblivious routing. We also compare the throughput gain of our scheme with COPE-type NC scheme. We show that Star-NC exploits new coding opportunities different from COPE-type NC and thus can be used with or without this scheme. The results show that Star-NC has often better performance than COPE for a directional traffic model which is a typical model in wireless mesh networks. Moreover, we found that, joint Star and COPE-type NC has better throughput performance than each of Star or COPE alone.     

Coding‐aware routing and scheduling in WiMAX‐based mesh networks: a cross‐layer design approach

In this paper, we propose a cross‐layer design framework for the joint problem of coding‐aware routing and scheduling in WiMAX‐based mesh networks with unicast sessions. The model attempts to maximize the system throughput by exploiting opportunistic coding opportunities through appropriate routing and by achieving efficient spectrum reuse through appropriate link scheduling. We assume centralized scheduling at the base station and focus on minimizing the total schedule length to satisfy a certain traffic demand. Minimizing the schedule length is equivalent to maximizing the system throughput. We present a linear programming optimization model for the joint problem, which relies on the enumeration of all possible schedules. Given its complexity, we decompose the problem using a column generation approach. Our numerical results show that significant gains may be achieved when network coding is incorporated into the design. We compare the performance with that of a joint coding‐oblivious model with and without transmission power control. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive Opportunistic Multicast Scheduling Over Next-Generation Wireless Networks

This paper considers the problem of opportunistic multicast scheduling in wireless time-division multiplexing systems with adaptive modulation and channel coding. The problem is first formulated and an effective scheduling scheme is proposed to maximize the multicast throughput while a desired packet error rate is guaranteed. The proposed scheme dynamically selects multicast rates by considering the configuration of the multicast group and instantaneous network states, and thus it can adapt well to network conditions. Extensive simulation results conclusively demonstrate that, compared to the worst-user multicast scheduling, the proposed approach can increase the wireless channel efficiency by large margins, especially when the channel is operating in a lower signal-to-noise ratio region and/or when the multicast group size increases. Besides, the simulations show that the proposed approach can work well in systems with imperfect channel estimation.     

效率感知的无线网络编码机制

网络编码在无线网络中的应用可以显著提高无线网络的吞吐量和容量。然而,当前大多数的无线网络编码机制在进行编码操作时,都没有考虑将不同长度的报文编码在一起时的效率问题。该文研究了在进行网络编码操作时如何获得最优的每字节编码效率,并设计了编码效率感知的无线网络编码机制(coDing Efficiency awarE Network coding, DEEN),以提升每字节的编码效率。模拟结果表明,DEEN协议能够有效地提升无线网络的容量。     

Delay analysis in practical wireless network coding

Network coding provides a powerful mechanism for improving performance of wireless networks. In this paper, we present an analytical approach for end‐to‐end delay analysis in wireless networks that employs inter‐session network coding. Prior work on performance analysis in wireless network coding mainly focuses on the throughput of the overall network. Our approach aims to analyze the delay of each flow in the network. The theoretical basis of our approach is network calculus. In order to use network calculus to analyze the performance of traffic flows in the network, we have to address three specific problems: identifying traffic flows, characterizing broadcast links, and measuring coding opportunities. We propose solutions for these problems and discuss the practical issues when applying the approach in practice. We make three main contributions. First, we obtain theoretical formulations for computing the queueing delay bounds of traffic flows in wireless networks with network coding. Second, with the formulations, we figure out the factors that affect the queueing delay of a flow and find that first‐in first‐out scheduling cannot fully exploit the benefit of network coding. Third, in order to exploit our findings, we introduce a new scheduling scheme that can improve the performance of current practical wireless network coding. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cross-Layer Design of Wireless Mesh Networks with Network Coding

We investigate the optimal design of a multihop wireless mesh network equipped with multiple orthogonal wireless channels and multiple radios. Specifically, we focus on solutions that can efficiently utilize the limited resource to support multiple unicast applications by routing and network coding. We propose a cross-layer optimization framework where the broadcasting feature of the wireless environment, which plays an important role in realizing the achievable gain of network coding, is taken into account. Moreover, we propose a network code construction scheme based on linear programming, with which the possible achievable Coding+MAC gain could be significantly increased. Delay constraints are also included in the network code construction formulation so that the possible impact of the extra decoding delay to the TCP/IP performance can be reduced without changing the upper-layer protocols. The proposed network design based on cross-layer optimization results in significant increase in network throughput.     

A one-hop opportunistic network coding algorithm for wireless mesh networks

This paper proposes a Bearing Opportunistic Network (BON) coding procedure that operates in wireless multihop networks over multiple unicast sessions and it introduces very low overhead to the network. The BON coding is used to increase network performance in terms of a higher throughput and a lower delay. It can be seen as an independent layer in the communication stack, relying solely on information that is on the node itself. The proposed coding procedure is easy to implement and deploy. The performance evaluation of the BON coding procedure was performed in a dedicated simulation model. The comparison was made to the well-known network coding procedure COPE and the case where network coding is not used at all. Results show that BON coding increases the network goodput and decreases the delay in comparison to COPE and case where network coding is not used.     

多点传输系统的联合调度方案

在下行蜂窝网络中,多点传输计划因可以大幅度提高扇区平均吞吐量和小区边缘用户速率而越来越受到关注。传统的独立调度算法中参与多点传输的扇区分别调度各自的用户,这种独立调度算法限制了系统性能的进一步提高。文章提出了一种针对SF-DCHSDPA系统新的联合调度方案,基站间通过交换信息选择适合的传输方案。可更好地调度用户。通过系统级仿真结果可以看出,新提出的联合调度算法可以获得更好的扇区平均吞吐量和边缘用户体验。     

XORs in the Air: Practical Wireless Network Coding

This paper proposes COPE, a new architecture for wireless mesh networks. In addition to forwarding packets, routers mix (i.e., code) packets from different sources to increase the information content of each transmission. We show that intelligently mixing packets increases network throughput. Our design is rooted in the theory of network coding. Prior work on network coding is mainly theoretical and focuses on multicast traffic. This paper aims to bridge theory with practice; it addresses the common case of unicast traffic, dynamic and potentially bursty flows, and practical issues facing the integration of network coding in the current network stack. We evaluate our design on a 20-node wireless network, and discuss the results of the first testbed deployment of wireless network coding. The results show that using COPE at the forwarding layer, without modifying routing and higher layers, increases network throughput. The gains vary from a few percent to several folds depending on the traffic pattern, congestion level, and transport protocol.      

Optimization of layered multicast with network coding and genetic algorithm

This article studies the problem of constructing optimal layered multicast with network coding for heterogeneous networks.Based on the flexibility of layered source coding, a global-favorable optimization scheme is proposed, which maximizes the aggregate throughput of heterogeneous sink nodes for layered multicast with network coding by determining the optimal bit rates of the layers. To solve this global-favorable optimization scheme, especially in the large-scale heterogeneous networks, a new problem-specific genetic algorithm (GA) is further proposed. It not only searches efficiently for the optimal allocation of layer bit rates, but also guarantees the validity of candidate solutions in the whole evolutionary process. Simulation results demonstrate that this new GA-based optimization scheme could obtain efficiently the optimal or satisfactorily near-optimal bit rates for layered multicast with network coding, even in the large-scale heterogeneous networks.     

An efficient ATM network switch scheduling

The problem of allocating network resources to application sessions backlogged at an individual switch has a great impact on the end-to-end delay and throughput guarantees offered by the network. There exists a class of algorithms based on weighted fair queueing (WFQ) for scheduling packets which are work-conserving and they guarantee fairness to the backlogged sessions. These algorithms also apply to ATM networks with a packet equal to a single cell or an ATM block (of fixed size). Bursts are groups of varying numbers of cells. We generalize WFQ to schedule bursts. Our motivation is to derive an adaptive algorithm which generalizes the (fixed size) packet level to a varying size packet level. The new algorithm enhances the performance of the switch service for many important applications. The proposed scheme maintains the work-conserving property, and also provides throughput and fairness guarantees. The worst-case delay bound is also given. We use simulation to study the performance characteristics of our algorithm. Our results demonstrate the efficiency of the new algorithm.     

网络编码中的侦听管理策略

 在基于机会式网络编码的的无线单播应用中,每个节点需要缓存一些数据包,用来对编码数据包进行解码,该缓存称作侦听缓存.本文针对"X"型拓扑分析了传统的基于先入先出的侦听管理策略,理论结果表明侦听缓存有限时吞吐量随侦听缓存的减小而迅速降低.为此,提出了一种基于尽力服务的侦听管理策略,提高了侦听缓存中数据包被用作解码的概率,进而提高了系统吞吐量.为减少无用数据包被缓存的概率,提出了一种基于历史信息的侦听管理策略,可有效减少干扰流对系统吞吐量的影响.     

Scheduling Combined Unicast and Multicast Traffic in Broadcast WDM Networks

This paper studies the performance of various strategies for scheduling a combined load of unicast and multicast traffic in a broadcast WDM network. The performance measure of interest is schedule length, which directly affects both aggregate network throughput and average packet delay. Three different scheduling strategies are presented, namely: separate scheduling of unicast and multicast traffic, treating multicast traffic as a number of unicast messages, and treating unicast traffic as multicasts of size one. A lower bound on the schedule length for each strategy is first obtained. Subsequently, the strategies are compared against each other using extensive simulation experiments in order to establish the regions of operation, in terms of a number of relevant system parameters, for which each strategy performs best. Our main conclusions are as follows. Multicast traffic can be treated as unicast traffic, by replicating all multicast packets, under very limited circumstances. On the other hand, treating unicast traffic as a special case of multicast traffic with a group of size 1, produces short schedules in most cases. Alternatively, scheduling and transmitting each traffic component separately is also a good choice.     

一种支持单播与组播混合业务的高速Crossbar调度算法

当前在高速crossbar中支持单、组播混合业务调度的实用算法一般采用请求-许可-接受的处理流程(例如ESLIP算法)。研究发现,该类算法中存在单、组播许可相互阻塞现象,造成调度效率降低。从实用性出发,该文提出了一种新的支持单、组播混合业务的调度算法ERGRR(Extended Request-Grant-based Round- Robin),通过简化调度处理流程,克服了许可阻塞现象,提高了系统吞吐量、时延等性能。仿真结果表明,在单、组播混合业务流下,ERGRR算法吞吐量、时延等性能优于ESLIP算法。另外,ERGRR算法具有更好的公平性以及更加易于硬件实现。     

Transmission scheduling in a multi‐channel wireless network with bidirectional relaying links

Using network coding in a wireless network can potentially improve the network throughput. On the other hand, it increases the complexity of resource allocations as the quality of one transmission is affected by the link conditions of the transmitter to multiple receivers. In this work, we study time slot scheduling and channel allocations jointly for a network with bidirectional relaying links, where the two end nodes of each link can exchange data through a relay node. Two scenarios are considered when the relay node forwards packets to the end nodes. In the first scenario, the relay node always forwards network‐coded packets to both end nodes simultaneously; in the second scenario, the relay node opportunistically uses network coding for two‐way relaying and traditional one‐way relaying. For each scenario, an optimization problem is first formulated for maximizing the total network throughput. The optimum scheduling is not causal because it requires future information of channel conditions. We then propose heuristic scheduling schemes. The slot‐based scheduling maximizes the total transmission rate of all the nodes at each time slot, and the node‐based scheduling schedules transmissions based on achievable transmission rates of individual nodes at different channels. The node‐based one has lower complexity than the slot‐based one. Our results indicate that although the node‐based scheduling achieves slightly lower throughput than the slot‐based one, both the proposed scheduling schemes are very effective in the sense that the difference between their throughput and the optimum scheduling is relatively small in different network settings. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于分布式时隙调度协议的战术互联网媒体访问控制技术

在分析现有移动无线网络TDMA时隙调度问题的基础上,根据战术互联网骨干网拓扑与业务需求,结合跳频电台的特点,提出了一种新的动态分布式TDMA时隙调度协议(DTSP),能够适应不同业务需求,支持单播、广播和组播.DTSP协议以无冲突的预留提高系统吞吐量,以渐增方式适应动态拓扑变化,动态调整的开销较小.最后,以DTSP时隙单播预留协议为例,进行了详细分析和复杂度计算.