Date of Award

1-1-2010

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Department

Computer Science and Engineering

First Advisor

Srihari Nelakuditi

Abstract

In data communication networks, the typical function of the nodes is to send, receive or forward data packets. Network coding is a modification to the way nodes process the packets. For each packet, the transmitter can reduce the number of transmissions through coding multiple packets and the receiver obtains the native packets by decoding the coded packets. This idea has been applied to wireless networks to achieve higher throughput because the unique characteristics of wireless media make network coding particularly useful. These opportunities precipitate the need to rethink and redesign existing protocols in traditional wireless networks.

This dissertation focuses on four aspects of the interplay of network coding with other existing wireless protocols. Four coding-aware protocols for wireless networks are designed and analyzed: Coding-aware Routing, Coding-aware Rate Selection, Coding-aware MAC layer, and Coding-aware Geographic Forwarding. Coding-aware Routing explores the possibility of changing the routes for traffic flows to create more coding opportunities. Coding-aware Rate Selection studies how to select the optimal transmission rate for the overall network or individual coded transmission. The coding-aware MAC section investigates the performance of network coding over different wireless MAC protocols. Coding-aware Geographic Forwarding addresses the possibility of improving the optimality of the next hop by changing the transmission rate or broadcast energy unit. Experimental results show that coding aware protocols have great potential and deserve increased research interest in the future.

Rights

© 2010, Bin Ni

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