Multipoint Relay flooding : Network coding improvements

Abstract: Network coding is a new research area with potential to reduce network resources. With network coding, intermediate nodes forward packets that are linear combinations of previously received packets. The type of networks we consider are vehicle mounted mobile tactical radio networks. Tactical communication may be required in areas where pre-deployed base stations are unavailable. Mobile ad hoc networks satisfy this requirement. Due to low antenna heights, network resources are scarce inmobile networks without base stations. Broadcast traffic, which disseminates information network-wide, is very important in tactical mobile networks. Multipoint relay flooding is a well-known technique for efficient distribution of broadcast traffic. It is therefore interesting to evaluate how much network coding can reduce the number of transmissions in a mobile ad hoc network. In this thesis we show that it is possible to further reduce the number of transmissions for Multipoints Relay flooding by using network coding. However, this improvement is largely theoretical - there has been no effort to evaluate this approach in practice.