Efficient Information Exchange in Wireless Sensor Networks using Network Coding

Information exchange among neighbor nodes is a basic characteristic of multi-hop wireless sensor networks, and is typically used for cluster head election, data aggregation, etc. In this paper we study the two-hop information exchange problem using a network coding approach. Firstly we examine the lowest bound for this problem in a high density sensor network. Then we propose low complexity network coding algorithms for grid topology networks and random topology networks. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that network coding algorithms achieve high performance in terms of scalability and the time needed for information exchange. For grid networks, our algorithm approaches the theoretical lowest bound. For random networks, our algorithm outperforms not only a simple forwarding algorithm, but also an ideal centralized forwarding algorithm.