On the power efficiency of cooperative broadcast in dense wireless networks

A fundamental problem in large scale wireless networks is the energy efficient broadcast of source messages to the whole network. The energy consumption increases as the network size grows, and the optimization of broadcast efficiency becomes more important. In this paper, we study the optimal power allocation problem for cooperative broadcast in dense large-scale networks. In the considered cooperation protocol, a single source initiates the transmission and the rest of the nodes retransmit the source message if they have decoded it reliably. Each node is allocated an-orthogonal channel and the nodes improve their receive signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), hence the energy efficiency, by maximal-ratio combining the receptions of the same packet from different transmitters. We assume that the decoding of the source message is correct as long as the receive SNR exceeds a predetermined threshold. Under the optimal cooperative broadcasting, the transmission order (i.e., the schedule) and the transmission powers of the source and the relays are designed so that every node receives the source message reliably and the total power consumption is minimized. In general, finding the best scheduling in cooperative broadcast is known to be an NP-complete problem. In this paper, we show that the optimal scheduling problem can be solved for dense networks, which we approximate as a continuum of nodes. Under the continuum model, we derive the optimal scheduling and the optimal power density. Furthermore, we propose low-complexity, distributed and power efficient broadcasting schemes and compare their power consumptions with those-of-a traditional noncooperative multihop transmission     

Cooperative multicast for maximum network lifetime

We consider cooperative data multicast in a wireless network with the objective to maximize the network lifetime. We present the maximum lifetime accumulative broadcast (MLAB) algorithm that specifies the nodes' order of transmission and transmit power levels. We prove that the solution found by MLAB is optimal but not necessarily unique. The power levels found by the algorithm ensure that the lifetimes of the active relays are the same, causing them to fail simultaneously. For the same battery levels at all the nodes, the optimum transmit powers become the same. The simplicity of the solution is made possible by allowing the nodes that are out of the transmission range of a transmitter to collect the energy of unreliably received overheard signals. As a message is forwarded through the network, nodes will have multiple opportunities to reliably receive the message by collecting energy during each retransmission. We refer to this cooperative strategy as accumulative multicast. Cooperative multicast not only increases the multicast energy-efficiency by allowing for more energy radiated in the network to be collected, but also facilitates load balancing by relaxing the constraint that a relay has to transmit with power sufficient to reach its most disadvantaged child. When the message is to be delivered to all network nodes this cooperative strategy becomes accumulative broadcast (Maric and Yates, 2002). Simulation results demonstrate that cooperative broadcast significantly increased network lifetime compared with conventional broadcast. We also present the distributed MLAB algorithm for accumulative broadcast that determines the transmit power levels locally at the nodes.     

Joint routing and scheduling optimization in arbitrary ad hoc networks: Comparison of cooperative and hop-by-hop forwarding

Cooperation schemes form a key aspect of infrastructure-less wireless networks that allow nodes that cannot directly communicate to exchange information through the help of intermediate nodes. The most widely adopted approach is based on hop-by-hop forwarding at the network layer along a path to destination. Cooperative relaying brings cooperation to the physical layer in order to fully exploit wireless resources. The concept exploits channel diversity by using multiple radio units to transmit the same message. The underlying fundamentals of cooperative relaying have been quite well-studied from a transmission efficiency point of view, in particular with a single pair of source and destination. Results of its performance gain in a multi-hop networking context with multiple sources and destinations are, however, less available. In this paper, we provide an optimization approach to assess the performance gain of cooperative relaying vis-a-vis conventional multi-hop forwarding under arbitrary network topology. The approach joint optimizes packet routing and transmission scheduling, and generalizes classical optimization schemes for non-cooperative networks. We provide numerical results demonstrating that the gain of cooperative relaying in networking scenarios is in general rather small and decreases when network connectivity and the number of traffic flows increase, due to interference and resource reuse limitations. In addition to quantifying the performance gain, our approach leads to a new framework for optimizing routing and scheduling in cooperative networks under a generalized Spacial Time Division Multiple Access (STDMA) scheme.     

A combination of wireless multicast advantage and hitch-hiking

In the minimum energy broadcast problem, each node adjusts its transmission power to minimize the total energy consumption while still delivering data to all the nodes in a network. The minimum energy broadcast problem is proved to be NP-complete. The Wireless Multicast Advantage (WMA) is that a single transmission can be received by all the nodes that are within the transmission range of a transmitting node. The Hitch-hiking model introduced recently takes advantage of the physical layer to combine partial signals containing the same data in order to decode a complete message. In this letter, we take advantage of both WMA and Hitch-hiking to design an energy-efficient broadcast tree algorithm with Hitch-hiking (BHH). The approximation ratio of BHH is within a factor of O(logn) where n, is the number of nodes in the network. The simulation results show that BHH reduces the total energy of the broadcast tree greatly.     

Exact Outage Probability of a Decode-and-Forward Scheme with Best Relay Selection Under Physical Layer Security

As demand for highly reliable data transmission in wireless networks has increased rapidly, cooperative communication technology has attracted a great deal of attention. In cooperative communication, some nodes, called eavesdroppers, illegally receive information that is intended for other communication links at the physical layer because of the broadcast characteristics of the wireless environment. Hence, Physical Layer Security is proposed to secure the communication link between two nodes against access by the eavesdroppers. In this paper, we propose and analyze the performance of decode-and-forward schemes with the best relay selection under Physical Layer Security with two operation protocols: first, only cooperative communication, and second, a combination of direct transmission and cooperative communication (the incremental protocol). In these schemes, a source transmits data to a destination with the assistance of relays, and the source-destination link is eavesdropped by one other node. The best relay is chosen in these proposals based on the maximum Signal-to-Noise ratio from the relays to the destination, and satisfies the secure communication conditions. The performance of each system is evaluated by the exact outage probability of the data rate over Rayleigh fading channels. Monte-Carlo results are presented to verify the theoretical analysis and are compared with a direct transmission scheme under Physical Layer Security and compared with each other.     

Cooperative quadrature physical layer network coding in wireless relay networks

This paper proposes a cooperative quadrature physical layer network coding (CQPNC) scheme for a dual‐hop cooperative relay network, which consists of two source nodes, one relay node and one destination node. All nodes in the network have one antenna, and the two source nodes transmit their signals modulated with quadrature carriers. In this paper, a cooperative quadrature physical layer network coded decode‐and‐forward (DF) relay protocol (CQPNC‐DF) is proposed to transmit the composite information from the two source nodes via the relay node to the destination node simultaneously to reduce the number of time slots required for a transmission. The proposed CQPNC‐DF relay protocol is compared with time‐division multiple‐access amplify‐and‐forward (TDMA‐AF), TDMA‐DF, cooperative network coded DF (CNC‐DF) and cooperative analog network coded AF (CANC‐AF) relay protocols to demonstrate its effectiveness in terms of bit error rate (BER) and system throughput under different propagation conditions. The simulation results reveal that the proposed CQPNC‐DF relay protocol can significantly improve the network performance. Compared with two TDMA schemes and CNC‐DF, the proposal can provide up to 100% and 50% throughput gains, respectively. Moreover, no matter what the scene, the proposed scheme always has the lowest BER in the low SNR region. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

网络编码在无线通信网络中的应用

网络编码是一种可以逼近网络容量传输理论极限的有效方法,在无线网络环境。中有着广泛的应用前景。在无线中继网络中采用网络编码技术,可以使中继节点同时为多个用户转发数据,从而获得较高的转发效率。网络编码在无线中继网络中的典型应用方案包括噪声中继采用置信传播算法实现网络编码,复数域网络编码算法以及信道编码和网络编码联合设计方法,它们均可在获得较高网络吞吐量的同时实现完全分集。在多用户协作通信网络中采用网络编码技术,可获得更高的分集增益以及更低的符号错误概率。     

Impact of Implicit Feedback Channel in Cooperative Relay Networks

In a multi-node network, cooperation among nodes is an effective means to enhance coverage and potentially increase the capacity. For such systems, schemes based on incremental relaying have great potential to improve the spectral efficiency by adapting the transmission to time varying channel conditions. The performance enhancement brought about by the presence of relays in such incremental relaying based cooperative systems is dependent on the level of cooperation (based on the relay information quality) and on coordination among the nodes. Coordination is achieved through the use of feedback channels, which incurs significant bandwidth penalty and brings down the spectral efficiency. In order to mitigate this, one can exploit an implicit feedback channel available due to broadcast nature of relay transmissions. Instead of using dedicated feedback channels, the implicit feedback channel is used to measure the relay information quality. Based on this information, the transmitter (source/relay) for the additional coded (redundancy) bits is determined. Such a mechanism enhances the reliability as it ensures the availability of correct information at the destination node for decoding. This paper studies the impact of such an implicit feedback channel by employing powerful codes which exhibit inherent incremental redundancy features, such as rate-compatible codes (rate-compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) codes and punctured low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes) and rateless codes (Luby Transform (LT) codes). Theoretical analyses of the proposed scheme are presented, and supported with results from extensive simulation studies.     

Mobile ad hoc network broadcasting: A multi‐criteria approach

Nodes in a computer network often require a copy of a message to be delivered to every node in the network. The network layer can provide such a service, referred to as network‐wide broadcast routing or simply ‘broadcasting’. Broadcasting has many applications, including its role as a service to many routing protocols. In a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), simplistic broadcast schemes (such as flooding) inundate the network with redundancy, contention, collision, and unnecessary use of energy resources. This can prevent broadcasts from achieving their primary objective of maximizing delivery ratio, while also considering secondary objectives, such as balancing energy resources or reducing the network's burden on congested or busy nodes. As a solution, we propose multiple‐criteria broadcasting (MCB). In MCB, the source of each broadcast specifies the importance assigned to broadcast objectives. Network nodes use these priorities, along with local and neighbor knowledge of distributed factors, to broadcast in accordance with the objective priorities attributed to the message. Using ns2, the performance of MCB is evaluated and compared to that of other broadcast protocols. To present knowledge, MCB constitutes the first reconfigurable, multi‐objective approach to broadcasting. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Piggyback a Common Message on Half-Duplex Bidirectional Relaying

In this work we consider the achievable rates of a joint resource allocation for a three-node network where a halfduplex relay node enables bidirectional communication between nodes 1 and 2 and thereby adds an own multicast message to the communication. In the multiple access phase nodes 1 and 2 transmit their message to the relay node, which decodes the messages and forwards them in the succeeding broadcast phase. Therefore, the relay node encodes the multicast and bidirectional messages using the superposition encoding strategy. We do not allow cooperation between the encoders of nodes 1 and 2, but since both nodes know a priori its own bidirectional message, both nodes can cancel the interference caused by their own message before decoding the unknown messages. It shows that for both nodes it is always optimal to decode the relay message first. Furthermore, the total sum-rate maximum is determined by the sum-rate optimum of the bidirectional broadcast phase. From the closed form solutions of the combinatorial problems we can characterize the bidirectional rate pairs where the total sum-rate remains constant. In the end the obtained results are discussed and illustrated by means of some working examples. The joint resource allocation improves the overall spectral efficiency and enables new trade-offs between the routing tasks.     

Network‐coded multiple‐source cooperation aided relaying for free‐space optical transmission

A network‐coded cooperative relaying aided free‐space optical (FSO) transmission scheme is designed. The resultant multiple‐source cooperation diversity is exploited by the relay to mitigate the strong turbulence‐induced fading experienced in FSO channels. At the destination, an iterative multiple source detection algorithm is proposed in conjunction with a chip‐level soft network decoding method. Our performance evaluation results using simulation analysis demonstrate that the proposed FSO multiple source detection is capable of approaching the single‐user‐bound for transmission over Gamma–Gamma turbulence channels. Also, the network‐coded cooperative FSO scheme can achieve a significant BER improvement in comparison with conventional noncooperation schemes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alternating Opportunistic Large Arrays in Broadcasting for Network Lifetime Extension

We propose a protocol for broadcasting in wireless multihop networks that is based on a form of cooperative transmission called the Opportunistic Large Array (OLA). An SNR (?transmission?) threshold is used to define two mutually exclusive sets of OLAs, such that the union of the sets includes all the nodes in the network. The broadcast protocol then alternates between the sets for each broadcast and is called Alternating OLA with Transmission Threshold (A-OLA-T). Under A-OLAT, all participating nodes transmit with the same low power, therefore the energies of the nodes in the network drain efficiently and uniformly, extending the network life relative to broadcasts that use simple OLA or non-alternating OLAs with a transmission threshold. In this paper, we optimize the A-OLA-T protocol under the continuum assumption (very high node density).     

Cooperative wireless communications: a cross-layer approach

This article outlines one way to address these problems by using the notion of cooperation between wireless nodes. In cooperative communications, multiple nodes in a wireless network work together to form a virtual antenna array. Using cooperation, it is possible to exploit the spatial diversity of the traditional MIMO techniques without each node necessarily having multiple antennas. Multihop networks use some form of cooperation by enabling intermediate nodes to forward the message from source to destination. However, cooperative communication techniques described in this article are fundamentally different in that the relaying nodes can forward the information fully or in part. Also the destination receives multiple versions of the message from the source, and one or more relays and combines these to obtain a more reliable estimate of the transmitted signal as well as higher data rates. The main advantages of cooperative communications are presented.     

A Unified Cross-Layer Framework for Resource Allocation in Cooperative Networks

Node cooperation is an emerging and powerful solution that can overcome the limitation of wireless systems as well as improve the capacity of the next generation wireless networks. By forming a virtual antenna array, node cooperation can achieve high antenna and diversity gains by using several partners to relay the transmitted signals. There has been a lot of work on improving the link performance in cooperative networks by using advanced signal processing or power allocation methods among a single source node and its relays. However, the resource allocation among multiple nodes has not received much attention yet. In this paper, we present a unified crosslayer framework for resource allocation in cooperative networks, which considers the physical and network layers jointly and can be applied for any cooperative transmission scheme. It is found that the fairness and energy constraint cannot be satisfied simultaneously if each node uses a fixed set of relays. To solve this problem, a multi-state cooperation methodology is proposed, where the energy is allocated among the nodes state-by-state via a geometric and network decomposition approach. Given the energy allocation, the duration of each state is then optimized so as to maximize the nodes utility. Numerical results will compare the performance of cooperative networks with and without resource allocation for cooperative beamforming and selection relaying. It is shown that without resource allocation, cooperation will result in a poor lifetime of the heavily-used nodes. In contrast, the proposed framework will not only guarantee fairness, but will also provide significant throughput and diversity gain over conventional cooperation schemes.     

Improving physical layer security via cooperative diversity in energy‐constrained cognitive radio networks with multiple eavesdroppers

In this paper, a scheme that exploits cooperative diversity of multiple relays to provide physical layer security against an eavesdropping attack is concerned. Relay‐based cognitive radio network (CRN) faces issues multiple issues other than the same as faced by conventional wireless communications. If the nodes in a CRN are able to harvest energy and then spend less energy than the total energy available, we can ensure a perpetual lifetime for the network. In this paper, an energy‐constrained CRN is considered where relay nodes are able to harvest energy. A cooperative diversity‐based relay and subchannel‐selection algorithm is proposed, which selects a relay and a subchannel to achieve the maximum secrecy rate while keeping the energy consumed under a certain limit. A transmission power factor is also selected by the algorithm, which ensures long‐term operation of the network. The power allocation problem at the selected relay and at the source also satisfies the maximum‐interference constraint with the primary user (PU). The proposed scheme is compared with a variant of the proposed scheme where the relays are assumed to have an infinite battery capacity (so maximum transmission power is available in every time slot) and is compared with a scheme that uses jamming for physical layer security. The simulation results show that the infinite battery‐capacity scheme outperforms the jamming‐based physical layer security scheme, thus validating that cooperative diversity‐based schemes are suitable to use when channel conditions are better employed, instead of jamming for physical layer security.     

Security-embedded opportunistic user cooperation with full diversity

As a promising technique for wireless networks, cooperative communications is coming to maturity in both theory and practice. The main merit of the cooperation technique is its capability in providing additional transmission links to harvest the spatial diversity gain at the physical layer. However, due to the broadcast nature of wireless medium, the diversity gain can be also freely achieved at the potential eavesdropper if the cooperation is performed blindly. To solve this problem, we propose a security-embedded opportunistic user cooperation scheme (OUCS) in this paper. The OUCS first defines a concept called secrecy-providing capability (SPC) for both the source and the cooperative relays. By comparing the values of SPC of these nodes, the OUCS jointly decides whether to cooperate and with whom to cooperate from the perspective of physical layer security. The secrecy outage performance of the OUCS is then derived. From the results we prove that full diversity can be achieved (i.e., the diversity order is N + 1 for N cooperative relays), which outperforms existing alternatives. Finally, numerical results are provided to validate the theoretical analysis.     

Maximum lifetime broadcast communications in cooperative multihop wireless ad hoc networks: Centralized and distributed approaches

We investigate the problem of broadcast routing in energy constrained stationary wireless ad hoc networks with an aim to maximizing the network lifetime measured as the number of successive broadcast sessions that can be supported. We propose an energy-aware spanning tree construction scheme supporting a broadcast request, considering three different signal transmission schemes in the physical layer: (a) point-to-point, (b) point-to-multipoint, and (c) multipoint-to-point. First we present a centralized algorithm that requires global topology information. Next, we extend this to design an approximate distributed algorithm, assuming the availability of k-hop neighborhood information at each node, with k as a parameter. We prove that the centralized scheme has time complexity polynomial in the number of nodes and the distributed scheme has a message complexity that is linear in the number of nodes. Results of numerical experiments demonstrate significant improvement in network lifetime following our centralized scheme compared to existing prominent non-cooperative broadcasting schemes proposed to solve the same lifetime maximization problem in wireless ad hoc networks. Due to lack of global topology information, the distributed solution does not produce as much advantage as the centralized solution. However, we demonstrate that with increasing value of k, the performance of the distributed scheme also improves significantly.     

Rate Regions for Relay Broadcast Channels

A partially cooperative relay broadcast channel (RBC) is a three-node network with one source node and two destination nodes (destinations 1 and 2) where destination 1 can act as a relay to assist destination 2. Inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of the discrete memoryless partially cooperative RBC are obtained. When the relay function is disabled, the inner bound reduces to an inner bound on the capacity region of broadcast channels that includes an inner bound of Marton, and GePfand and Pinsker. The outer bound reduces to a new outer bound on the capacity region of broadcast channels that generalizes an outer bound of Marton to include a common message, and that generalizes an outer bound of GePfand and Pinsker to apply to general discrete memoryless broadcast channels. The proof for the outer bound simplifies the proof of GePfand and Pinsker that was based on a recursive approach. Four classes of RBCs are studied in detail. For the partially cooperative RBC with degraded message sets, inner and outer bounds are obtained. For the semideterministic partially cooperative RBC and the orthogonal partially cooperative RBC, the capacity regions are established. For the parallel partially cooperative RBC with unmatched degraded subchannels, the capacity region is established for the case of degraded message sets. The capacity is also established when the source node has only a private message for destination 2, i.e., the channel reduces to a parallel relay channel with unmatched degraded subchannels.     

Directional broadcast for mobile ad hoc networks with percolation theory

For mobile ad hoc networks, network-wide broadcast is a critical network layer function supporting route discovery and maintenance in many unicast and multicast protocols. A number of broadcast schemes have been proposed; however, almost all of them assume the usage of omnidirectional antennas and focus on broadcast overhead in terms of the number of forwarding nodes. Directional antennas have narrow beams and can potentially reduce broadcast overhead in terms of the ratio of the number of received duplicate packets to the number of nodes that receive broadcast packets. In this paper, we propose to map probability-based directional and omnidirectional broadcast to bond and site percolation, respectively, and describe a collection of directional antenna-based broadcast schemes for mobile ad hoc networks. A thorough and comparative simulation study is conducted to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed schemes.     

Collaborative decoding in bandwidth-constrained environments

We present a cooperative communication scheme in which a group of receivers can collaborate to decode a message that none of the receivers can individually decode. The receivers act as a virtual antenna array in which the combining must be performed over bandwidth-constrained links. The proposed approach is targeted at systems in which the cooperative information must be digitized, such as for wireless or wired links that are constrained to use digital modulation. In such systems, previously proposed schemes such as amplify-and-forward would require that a large amount of information be exchanged when there are many collaborating nodes. The approach presented in this paper, called improved least-reliable bits (I-LRB) collaborative decoding, provides a higher level of adaptation than previously proposed cooperative schemes. The I-LRB scheme utilizes reliability information and information about competing paths in soft-input, soft-output (SISO) decoders to adaptively select the amount of information that is needed to correct a particular part of a message, as well as which bits should be exchanged. Simulation results show that the proposed approach offers a significant performance advantage over a constrained-overhead, incremental form of maximal ratio combining (MRC)