Coding Improves the Throughput-Delay Tradeoff in Mobile Wireless Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on information theory 2012-11, Vol.58 (11), p.6894-6906
• Main Authors: Zhenning Kong, Yeh, E. M., Soljanin, E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ad hoc networks; Applied sciences; Business and industry local networks; Coding; Coding theory; Coding, codes; Delay; Encoding; Equipments and installations; Exact sciences and technology; Information theory; Information, signal and communications theory; maximum distance separable (MDS) codes; Mobile communication; Mobile radiocommunication systems; mobility; network coding; Networks and services in france and abroad; Radiocommunications; Random walk; Random walk theory; Reed-Solomon (RS) codes; Reed-Solomon codes; Relay; relaying; Relays; scaling law; Signal and communications theory; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Teleprocessing networks. Isdn; Throughput; wireless network; Wireless networks
• ISSN: 0018-9448; 1557-9654
• DOI: 10.1109/TIT.2012.2208573

This paper studies the throughput-delay performance tradeoff in large-scale wireless ad hoc networks. It has been shown that the per source-destination pair throughput can be improved from Θ(1/√{ n log n }) to Θ(1) if nodes are allowed to move and a two-hop relay scheme is employed. The price paid for such a throughput improvement is large delay. Indeed, the delay scaling of the two-hop relay scheme is Θ( n log n ) under the random walk mobility model. In this paper, coding techniques are used to improve the throughput-delay tradeoff for mobile wireless networks. For the random walk mobility model, the delay is reduced from Θ( n log n ) to Θ( n ) by employing a maximum distance separable Reed-Solomon coding scheme. This coding approach maintains the diversity gained by mobility while decreasing the delay.