Network coding assisted cooperative relay scheme for sender-oriented broadcast in VANETs

In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), a multi-hop broadcast protocol is required to disseminate traffic warning information. Reducing broadcast message overhead while maintaining a high dissemination ratio is a very challenging task. In this paper, we study how to improve the performance of sender-oriented broadcast protocols using network coding. We propose a scheme which uses network coding to improve the packet dissemination ratio without increasing the message overhead. In the proposed scheme, the source node specifies two relay nodes. With cooperation between two relay nodes, the proposed scheme significantly increases the packet reception ratio by utilizing the broadcast nature of wireless channel. We show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme by using both theoretical analysis and computer simulations.