In recent years, network coding has emerged as an innovative method that helps wireless network approaches its maximum capacity, by combining multiple unicasts in one broadcast. However, the majority of research conducted in this area is yet to fully utilize the broadcasting nature of wireless networks, and still assumes fixed route between the source and destination that every packet should travel through. This assumption not only limits coding opportunities, but can also cause buffer overflow in some specific intermediate nodes. Although some studies considered scattering of the flows dynamically in the network, they still face some limitations. This paper explains pros and cons of some prominent research in network coding and proposes FlexONC (Flexible and Opportunistic Network Coding) as a solution to such issues. The performance results show that FlexONC outperforms previous methods especially in worse quality networks, by better utilizing redundant packets spread in the network.
A variety of improvements over COPE have been put forward @cite_10 . BEND, as an advancement of COPE, introduces another type of gain, referred to as the diffusion gain, which is the benefit of being able to scatter flows through multiple forwarders dynamically. In BEND, each node has three queues: @math for intended native packets, @math for overheard native packets, and for coded packets. A node can combine two packets if the next hop of the first packet is the previous hop of the second packet or one of its neighbors, and vice versa.
@cite_10
2136393386
In recent times, there have been many advances in the field of information theory and wireless ad hoc network technologies. Regarding information theory progression and its connection with wireless ad hoc networks, this study presents fundamental concepts related to the application of the state-of-the-art Network Coding (NC) within wireless ad hoc networks in the context of routing. To begin with, this paper briefly describes opportunistic routing and identifies differentiation between NC-aware and NC-based routing mechanisms in wireless ad hoc networks. However, our main focus is to provide a survey of available NC-aware routing protocols that make forwarding decisions based on the information of available coding opportunities across several routes within wireless ad hoc networks. The taxonomy and characteristics of various representative NC-aware routing protocols will also be discussed. In summary, we provide a comparison of available NC-aware routing schemes and conclude that NC-aware routing techniques have several advantages over traditional routing in terms of high throughput, high reliability, and lower delay in a wireless scenario. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first that provides comprehensive discussion about NC-aware routing protocols.