An efficient packet selection algorithm for network coding based multicast retransmission in mobile communication networks

This paper proposes an efficient packet selection algorithm, called Weight Pick, for improving the efficiency of a network coding based retransmission protocol for mobile communication networks. Unlike existing packet selection algorithms, Weight Pick introduces the concept of dynamic combination number for performing network coding. Based on this concept, a base station dynamically determines the number of packets combined or encoded in a retransmitted packet based on the current packet receiving status and the combination number for each retransmitted packet can be different. Simulation results show that Weight Pick can significantly improve the retransmission performance as compared with existing packet selection algorithms in terms of packet loss ratio and the number of transmitted packets.