Practical network coding approach for multicast packet switching

This paper considers the problem of applying network coding in input and output queued (IOQ) packet switch loaded with both unicast and multicast flows. With network coding the switch can transmit the linear combination of multicast packets which prominently improves the switching efficiency in terms of throughput. The key idea is to use Vandermonde Matrix as the coding coefficient matrix while applying linear network coding over multicast packets. The paper also proposes a practical NC-based switch model to implement the coding approach.