Joint Channel Coding and Cooperative Network Coding on PSK Constellations in Wireless Networks

In this paper, we consider the application of Reed-Solomon (RS) channel coding for joint error correction and cooperative network coding on non-binary phase shift keying (PSK) modulated signals. The relay first decodes the RS channel coded messages received each in a time slot from all sources before applying network coding (NC) by the use of bit-level exclusive OR (XOR) operation. The network coded resulting message is then channel encoded before its transmission to the next relay or to the destination according to the network configuration. This scenario shows superior performance in comparison with the case where the relay does not perform channel coding/decoding. For different orders of PSK modulation and different wireless configurations, simulation results demonstrate the improvements resulting from the use of RS channel codes in terms of symbol error rate (SER) versus signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).