A Network Coding Based Data Dissemination Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the functions of data dissemination are distributing codes to destination nodes and update their function. Because of the limitation of the sensors' power in WSNs, the process of data dissemination should be reliable and quick. Considering network coding has many advantages such as strong practicality, simple operation and fitting for robust and distributed transmission, in this paper, we present a data dissemination scheme based on random linear network coding. The key idea of proposed scheme is to combine random linear network coding with flooding protocol in network layer protocol. By means of encoding native packets, proposed scheme increases the reliability of communication and reduces the number of packets which is sent by sink. Thus, delay time of network is reduced. Simulation results display that the proposed scheme can reduce average delay of the overall network by 50%. Especially, as the size of native packet increases, the performance of proposed scheme becomes better.