Multi-Hop D2D Communications With Network Coding: From a Performance Perspective

Multi-hop device-to-device (D2D) communications play an important role in expanding D2D coverage. In this paper, we study a relay-based and network-coding-assisted (in particular, XOR coding) multi-hop D2D communication system. In the system, toward jointly considering the impact of interference and network traffic conditions on the quality of D2D communications, various channel fading models and traffic models are investigated, and the packet loss probability of D2D links is meticulously computed using these models. With the packet loss probability of D2D links, the general closed-form expressions of end-to-end packet loss probability (E2EPLP) of the system with the presence (or absence) of XOR coding are subsequently derived. Our experiments reveal that both the number of relays and the mechanism of XOR coding can affect the system performance. Specifically, the increase in the number of relays will lower the overall system performance (e.g., an increase in the E2EPLP and end-to-end completion time, and a decrease of the end-to-end rate may follow as a result). On the other hand, although the presence of XOR coding unfortunately raises the system E2EPLP, it can effectively improve the end-to-end completion time and end-to-end rate. It is our belief that the analytical approach proposed in this paper and the results found in our work can be useful to peer studies in the context of applying network coding in multi-hop D2D networks.