2nd International ICST Workshop on Network Coding, Theory, and Applications

Research Article

On the Benefits of Network Coding for Wireless Applications

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/WIOPT.2006.1666521,
        author={Jean Yves  Le Boudec and Joerg  Widmer and Christina  Fragouli},
        title={On the Benefits of Network Coding for Wireless Applications},
        proceedings={2nd International ICST Workshop on Network Coding, Theory, and Applications},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={NETCOD},
        year={2006},
        month={8},
        keywords={},
        doi={10.1109/WIOPT.2006.1666521}
    }
    
  • Jean Yves Le Boudec
    Joerg Widmer
    Christina Fragouli
    Year: 2006
    On the Benefits of Network Coding for Wireless Applications
    NETCOD
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/WIOPT.2006.1666521
Jean Yves Le Boudec1, Joerg Widmer1, Christina Fragouli1,*
  • 1: EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
*Contact email: christina.fragouli@epfl.ch

Abstract

We argue that the main benefits of network coding in a wireless environment might manifest in situations where the topology dynamically changes, and operation is restricted to distributed algorithms that do not employ knowledge about the network environment. We consider several problem instances in this set-up, that include broadcasting information to all nodes of the network and collecting sensor measurements. We show that in many such cases, under some simplifying assumptions, the problem is theoretically equivalent to simple variations of the coupon collector problem. Thus network coding can offer benefits of a factor of log n, where n is the number of nodes and the benefits are in terms of energy efficiency, as was proven in [3]. We present simulation results under more realistic conditions that support this claim.