Network Coding For Quality Of Service In Wireless Multi Hop Networks

In this thesis we deal with the application of Network Coding to guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS) for wireless multi-hop networks. Since the medium is shared, wireless networks suffer from the negative interference impact on the bandwidth. It is thus interesting to propose a Network Coding based approach that takes into account this interference during the routing process. In this context, we first propose an algorithm minimizing the interference impact for unicast flows while respecting their required bandwidth. Then, we combine it with Network Coding to increase the number of admitted flows and with Topology Control to still improve the interference management. We show by simulation the benefit of combining the three fields: Network Coding, interference consideration and Topology Control. We also deal with delay management for multicast flows and use the Generation-Based Network Coding (GBNC) that combines the packets per blocks. Most of the works on GBNC consider a fixed generation size. Because of the network state variations, the delay of decoding and recovering a block of packets can vary accordingly degrading the QoS. To solve this problem, we propose a network-and content-aware method that adjusts the generation size dynamically to respect a certain decoding delay. We also enhance it to overcome the issue of acknowledgement loss. We then propose to apply our approach in a Home Area Network for Live TV and video streaming. Our solution provides QoS and Quality of Experience for the end user with no additional equipment. Finally, we focus on a more theoretical work in which we present a new Butterfly-based network for multi-source multi-destination flows. We characterize the source node buffer size using the queuing theory and show that it matches the simulation results.

Network coding is an innovative idea to boost the capacity of wireless networks. However, there are not enough analytical studies on throughput and end-to-end delay of network coding in multi-hop wireless mesh network that incorporates the specifications of IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function. In this dissertation, we utilize queuing theory to propose an analytical framework for bidirectional unicast flows in multi-hop wireless mesh networks. We study the throughput and end-to-end delay of inter-flow network coding under the IEEE 802.11 standard with CSMA/CA random access and exponential back-o↵ time considering clock freezing and virtual carrier sensing, and formulate several parameters such as the probability of successful transmission in terms of bit error rate and collision probability, waiting time of packets at nodes, and retransmission mechanism. Our model uses a multi-class queuing network with stable queues, where coded packets have a non-preemptive higher priority over native packets, and forwarding of native packets is not delayed if no coding opportunities are available. The accuracy of our analytical model is verified using computer simulations. Furthermore, while inter-flow network coding is proposed to help wireless networks approach the maximum capacity, the majority of research conducted in this area is yet to fully utilize the broadcast nature of wireless networks, and to perform e↵ectively under poor channel quality. This vulnerability is mostly caused by assuming fixed route between the source and destination that every packet should travel through. This assumption not only limits coding opportunities, but can also cause bu↵er overflow at some specific intermediate nodes. Although some studies considered scattering of the flows dynamically in the network, they still face some limitations. This dissertation explains pros and cons of some prominent research in network coding and proposes a Flexible and Opportunistic Network Coding scheme (FlexONC) as a solution to such issues. Moreover, this research discovers that the conditions used in previous studies to combine packets of di↵erent flows are overly optimistic and would a↵ect the network performance adversarially. Therefore, we provide a more accurate set of rules for packet encoding. The experimental results show that FlexONC outperforms previous methods especially in networks with high bit error rates, by better utilizing redundant packets permeating the network, and benefiting from precise coding conditions.

Focusing on an important and complicated topic in wireless network design, Wireless Quality of Service: Techniques, Standards, and Applications systematically addresses the quality-of-service (QoS) issues found in many types of popular wireless networks. In each chapter, the book presents numerous QoS challenges encountered in real-world

Following the pattern of the Internet growth in popularity, started in the early 1990s, the current unprecedented expansion of wireless technology promises to have an even greater effect on how people communicate and interact, with considerable socio-economic impact all over the world. The driving force behind this growth is the remarkable progress in component miniaturization, integration, and also devel- ments in waveforms, coding, and communication protocols. Besides established infrastructurebased wireless networks (cellular, WLAN, sat- lite) ad-hoc wireless networks emerge as a new platform for distributed applications and for personal communication in scenarios where deploying infrastructure is not feasible. In ad-hoc wireless networks, each node is capable of forwarding packets on behalf of other nodes, so that multi-hop paths provide end-to-end connectivity. The increased flexibility and mobility of ad-hoc wireless networks are favored for appli- tions in law enforcement, homeland defense and military. In a world where wireless networks become increasingly interoperable with each other and with the high-speed wired Internet, personal communication systems will transform into universal terminals with instant access to variate content and able of handle demanding tasks, such as multimedia and real-time video. With users roaming between networks, and with wide variation in wireless link quality even in a single domain, the communications terminal must continue to provide a level of Quality of Service that is acceptable to the user and conforms to a contracted Service Level Agreement.

The rapid advancements in communication and networking technologies boost the capacity of wireless networks. Multi-hop wireless networks are extremely exciting and rapidly developing areas and have been receiving an increasing amount of attention by researchers. Due to the limited transmission range of the nodes, end-to-end nodes may situate beyond direct radio transmission ranges. Intermediate nodes are required to forward data in order to enable the communication between nodes that are far apart. Routing in such networks is a critical issue. Opportunistic routing has been proposed to increase the network performance by utilizing the broadcast nature of wireless media. Unlike traditional routing, the forwarder in opportunistic routing broadcasts date packets before the selection of the next hop. Therefore, opportunistic routing can consider multiple downstream nodes as potential candidate nodes to forward data packets instead of using a dedicated next hop. Instead of simply forwarding received packets, network coding allows intermediate nodes to combine all received packets into one or more coded packets. It can further improve network throughput by increasing the transmission robustness and efficiency. In this dissertation, we will study the fundamental components, related issues and associated challenges about opportunistic routing and network coding in multi-hop wireless networks. Firstly, we focus on the performance analysis of opportunistic routing by the Discrete Time Markov Chain (DTMC). Our study demonstrates how to map packet transmissions in the network with state transitions in a Markov chain. We will consider pipelined data transfer and evaluate opportunistic routing in different wireless networks in terms of expected number of transmissions and time slots. Secondly, we will propose a regional forwarding schedule to optimize the coordination of opportunistic routing. In our coordination algorithm, the forwarding schedule is limited to the range of the transmitting node rather than among the entire set of forwarders. With such an algorithm, our proposal can increase the throughput by deeper pipelined transmissions. Thirdly, we will propose a mechanism to support TCP with opportunistic routing and network coding, which are rarely incorporated with TCP because the frequent occurrences of out-of-order arrivals in opportunistic routing and long decoding delay in network coding overpower TCP congestion control. Our solution completes the control feedback loop of TCP by creating a bridge between the sender and the receiver. The simulation result shows that our protocol significantly outperforms TCP/IP in terms of network throughput in different topologies of wireless networks.

This book provides a systematic introduction to the fundamental concepts, major challenges, and effective solutions for Quality of Service in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Unlike other books on the topic, it focuses on the networking aspects of WSNs, discussing the most important networking issues, including network architecture design, medium access control, routing and data dissemination, node clustering, node localization, query processing, data aggregation, transport and quality of service, time synchronization, and network security. Featuring contributions from researchers, this book strikes a balance between fundamental concepts and new technologies, providing readers with unprecedented insights into WSNs from a networking perspective. It is essential reading for a broad audience, including academics, research engineers, and practitioners, particularly postgraduate/postdoctoral researchers and engineers in industry. It is also suitable as a textbook or supplementary reading for graduate computer engineering and computer science courses.

We investigate a number of techniques for increasing throughput and quality of media applications over wireless networks. A typical media communication application such as video streaming imposes strict requirements on the delay and throughout of its packets, which unfortunately, cannot be guaranteed by the underlying wireless network due inherently to the multi-user interference and limited bandwidth of wireless channels. Therefore, much recent research has been focused on the joint design of network layers in order to guarantee some pre-specified Quality of Service (QoS). In this thesis, we investigate three specific settings to address the general problem of media transmission over wireless networks. In the first setting, we propose a distributed admission control algorithm in one-hop wireless network to decide whether or not a new flow should be injected into the network, in order to guarantee the QoS of the current flows. Next, a novel medium access control protocol and a scheduling packet algorithm are proposed for jointly optimizing the quality of video streaming applications. In the second setting, we extend the framework of the proposed admission control from a one-hop network to linear wireless networks, consisting of multiple nodes. In the third and final setting, we present an approach for increasing the throughput of wireless access networks by integrating network coding and beamforming techniques.

The imperfections of the propagation channel due to channel fading and the self-generated noise from the RF front-end of the receiver cause errors in the received signal in electronic communication systems. When network coding is applied, more errors occur because of error propagation due to the inexact decoding process. In this dissertation we present a system called Partial Network Coding with Cooperation (PNC-COOP) for wireless ad hoc networks. It is a system which combines opportunistic network coding with decode-and-forward cooperative diversity, in order to reduce this error propagation by trading off some transmission degrees of freedom. PNC-COOP is a decentralized, energy efficient strategy which provides a substantial benefit over opportunistic network coding when transmission power is a concern. The proposed scheme is compared with both opportunistic network coding and conventional multi-hop transmission analytically and through simulation. Using a 3-hop communication scenario, in a 16-node wireless ad hoc network, it is shown that PNC-COOP improves the BER performance by 5 dB compared to opportunistic network coding. On average, it reduces the energy used by each sender node around 10% and reduces the overall transmitted energy of the network by 3.5%. When retransmission is applied, it is shown analytically that PNC-COOP performs well at relatively low to medium SNR while the throughput is comparable to that of opportunistic network coding. The effectiveness of both opportunistic network coding and PNC-COOP depends not only on the amount of network coding but also on other factors that are analyzed and discussed in this dissertation.