Reliable feedback mechanisms for routing protocols with network coding

PLC has the broadcast channel that enables overhearing and allows to use cooperative routing strategies. Opportunistic Routing (OpR) is a modern cooperative routing paradigm in broadcast channel networks such as PLC and wireless networks. In combination with Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), it has been proven to increase the achievable data rate and reliability significantly. The reliability is supported by Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) mechanisms. Traditional ARQs as Stop-And-Wait, Go-Back-N and Selective-Repeat are outperformed by the hybrid ARQs (HARQs). We analyze and compare six HARQs designed especially for protocols with Network Coding (NC). For this purpose, we propose a novel minimalistic evaluation setup. It reveals the disadvantages of each feedback (ARQ) mechanisms allowing an effective and fair comparison. We define performance metrics that indicate the reliability and efficiency and conduct the experiments using different NC parameters and the feedback frequency. We notice that some HARQs allow high reliability (packet loss < 10−4), while others have just a few percent protocol overhead. For such results, only one feedback per the code block is normally sufficient.

[1]  Peyman Pahlevani,et al.  PlayNCool: Opportunistic network coding for local optimization of routing in wireless mesh networks , 2013, 2013 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps).

[2]  Christos Gkantsidis,et al.  Multipath code casting for wireless mesh networks , 2007, CoNEXT '07.

[3]  Daniel E. Lucani,et al.  Towards the Tactile Internet: Decreasing Communication Latency with Network Coding and Software Defined Networking , 2015 .

[4]  Ievgenii Tsokalo.  Opportunistic Routing with network coding in powerline communications , 2017 .

[5]  Sachin Katti,et al.  Trading structure for randomness in wireless opportunistic routing , 2007, SIGCOMM 2007.

[6]  Robert Tappan Morris,et al.  ExOR: opportunistic multi-hop routing for wireless networks , 2005, SIGCOMM '05.

[7]  Daniel E. Lucani,et al.  Sending Policies in Dynamic Wireless Mesh Using Network Coding , 2015 .

[8]  Muriel Médard,et al.  Codecast: a network-coding-based ad hoc multicast protocol , 2006, IEEE Wireless Communications.

[9]  Daniel E. Lucani,et al.  Adaptive Relay Activation in the Network Coding Protocols , 2015 .

[10]  Dimitrios Koutsonikolas,et al.  CCACK: Efficient Network Coding Based Opportunistic Routing Through Cumulative Coded Acknowledgments , 2010, 2010 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM.

[11]  Tsuhan Chen,et al.  Design, implementation and evaluation of an efficient opportunistic retransmission protocol , 2009, MobiCom '09.

[12]  Frank H. P. Fitzek,et al.  Caterpillar RLNC (CRLNC): A Practical Finite Sliding Window RLNC Approach , 2017, IEEE Access.

[13]  Milica Stojanovic,et al.  Network coding for data dissemination: it is not what you know, but what your neighbors don't know , 2009, 2009 7th International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc, and Wireless Networks.

[14]  Lili Qiu,et al.  SOAR: Simple Opportunistic Adaptive Routing Protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.