Noisy network coding with partial DF

In this paper, we propose a noisy network coding integrated with partial decode-and-forward relaying for single-source multicast discrete memoryless networks (DMN's). Our coding scheme generalizes the partial-decode-compress-and-forward scheme (Theorem 7) by Cover and El Gamal. This is the first time the theorem is generalized for DMN's such that each relay performs both partial decode-and-forward and compress-and-forward simultaneously. Our coding scheme simultaneously generalizes both noisy network coding by Lim, Kim, El Gamal, and Chung and distributed decode-and-forward by Lim, Kim, and Kim. It is not trivial to combine the two schemes because of inherent incompatibility in their encoding and decoding strategies. We solve this problem by sending the same long message over multiple blocks at the source and at the same time by letting the source find the auxiliary covering indices that carry information about the message simultaneously over all blocks.