Practical Wireless Network Coding with Constrained Decoding Buffers

In practical wireless network coding, each node cach-es relayed packets and overheard packets in a buffer for decoding. This buffer is defined as decoding buffer. Relay nodes determine whether network coding can be performed according to cached packets in decoding buffers at their neighbors. This paper analyzes coding performance with constrained decoding buffers. Theoretical results in terms of average encoding number, network throughput and packet loss ratio are given for a line-type or "X" coding structure. Moreover, the effect of scheduling policies and bandwidth allocation on coding performance are also analyzed. Coding performance and the optimal bandwidth allocation are evaluated and discussed with numerical results.