Combining LT codes and XOR network coding for reliable and energy efficient transmissions in wireless sensor networks

This paper tackles the problem of providing end to end reliable transmissions in a randomly deployed wireless sensor network. To this aim, we investigate the simultaneous use of gradient broadcast routing (for its inherent adaptability to any network topology and its changes), fountain codes (for their universal property) and intra-flow network coding (to introduce packet diversity in redundant copies). We present the impact of the proposed XLT-GRAB strategy on a realistic network. This work permits to highlight that, compared to basic gradient broadcast routing, the strategy not only improves the reliability and the delay in the network but also clearly increases its lifetime.