Index coding and network coding via rank minimization

Index codes reduce the number of bits broadcast by a wireless transmitter to a number of receivers with different demands and with side information. It is known that the problem of finding optimal linear index codes is NP-hard. We investigate the performance of different heuristics based on rank minimization and matrix completion methods for constructing linear index codes over the reals. As a summary of our results, the alternating projections method gives the best results in terms of minimizing the number of broadcast bits and convergence rate and leads to up to 13% savings in communication cost compared to graph coloring algorithms studied in the literature. Moreover, we describe how the proposed methods can be used to construct linear network codes for non-multicast networks.