Chapter: Network Coding for Wireless Networking
Abstract:
Network coding is a promising technique to increase the performances of wireless networks in terms of throughput, energy efficiency and complexity. In fact, coding instead of routing can increase the transmission rate in multicast scenarios and simplify the design of protocols and algorithms. Moreover, some initial results of network coding in wireless networks have shown its capability to achieve minimum energy in multicast scenarios compared to ’classical’ routing protocols. This chapter presents the theoretical framework for wireless network coding applications. Network coding research is increasingly gathering pace since it has been shown to be a powerful solution for energy efficient networks and video streaming applications. However, there are still open issues on how many of these solutions can be actually implemented in practice. This chapter investigates some of the most typical network coding solutions for implementation on real networks and highlights the challenges that lie ahead.