Pipeline Network Coding-Based Multipath Data Transfer in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Multipath transmission control protocol (MPTCP) has attracted significant attention from standardization bodies, industrial communities, and academic communities. However, an important performance-related aspect is that MPTCP is negatively affected by packet reordering, especially in heterogeneous wireless environments. Although to improve the protocol, the proposed updated scheduling policies and congestion control methods do not solve the problem fundamentally. In this context, by breaking the strong binding between data packets and their sequence numbers, network coding has been demonstrated to be a promising solution for end-to-end multipath transmissions. However, current network coding solutions are based on batch coding without exception, and encoding and decoding operations cannot proceed unless all packets of a group have arrived. In addition, frequent generation and transmission of coding coefficients increase the delay and waste the already limited bandwidth. This paper proposes a novel pipeline network coding-based MPTCP (MPTCP-PNC) which reduces encoding and decoding delay and saves bandwidth by using innovative economic coding coefficient rules. Based on these, a quality-based distribution scheme and a corresponding transmission management policy are introduced to further improve the performance of MPTCP-PNC. Simulation tests involving video delivery over a multi-path distribution network show how MPTCP-PNC outperforms other state-of-art network coding solutions.