A Memetic Algorithm for Cache-Aided Data Broadcast with Network Coding in Vehicular Networks

With recent advances in wireless communications, vehicular networks are envisioned as a promising paradigm on achieving breakthroughs in transportation safety, efficiency, and sustainability. This work investigates data broadcast via Infrastructure-to-Vehicle (I2V) communication by exploiting the vehicular caching and network coding for enhancing bandwidth efficiency of the road-side unit (RSU). Specifically, we present an architecture for providing real-time data services via I2V communication in the service range of a RSU. Then, we investigate the problem of cache-aided data dissemination with network coding and prove that it is NP-hard. Further, we propose a memetic algorithm, which consists of a binary vector representation for encoding solutions, a fitness function for solution evaluation, a set of operators for offspring generation, a local search method for solution enhancement and a repair operator for fixing infeasible solutions. Finally, we build the simulation model and give a comprehensive performance evaluation to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed solution.