Brooke Shrader

A queueing model for random linear coding

In this work we consider coding over packets that randomly arrive to a source node for transmission to a single destination. We present a queueing model for a random linear coding scheme that adapts to the amount of traffic at the source node. If there is only one packet in the queue when the channel becomes free, then reliable transmission is carried out by retransmitting lost packets. If there are at least two packets in the queue, then random linear coding is carried out over the number of packets available in the queue when the channel becomes free. We provide a bulk-service queuing model and results on the delay of this random linear coding scheme, and show that its delay performance asymptotically approaches that of a retransmission scheme.

Optimal routing and scheduling for a simple network coding scheme

We consider jointly optimal routing, scheduling, and network coding strategies to maximize throughput in wireless networks. While routing and scheduling techniques for wireless networks have been studied for decades, network coding is a relatively new technique that allows for an increase in throughput under certain topological and routing conditions. In this work we introduce k-tuple coding, a generalization of pairwise coding with next-hop decodability, and fully characterize the region of arrival rates for which the network queues can be stabilized under this coding strategy. We propose a dynamic control policy for routing, scheduling, and k-tuple coding, and prove that our policy is throughput optimal subject to the k-tuple coding constraint. We provide analytical bounds on the coding gain of our policy, and present numerical results to support our analytical findings. We show that most of the gains are achieved with pairwise coding, and that the coding gain is greater under 2-hop than 1-hop interference. Simulations show that under 2-hop interference our policy yields median throughput gains of 31% beyond optimal scheduling and routing on random topologies with 16 nodes.

Random Access Broadcast: Stability and Throughput Analysis

A wireless network in which packets are broadcast to a group of receivers through use of a random access protocol is considered in this work. The relation to previous work on networks of interacting queues is discussed and subsequently, the stability and throughput regions of the system are analyzed and presented. A simple network of two source nodes and two destination nodes is considered first. The broadcast service process is analyzed assuming a channel that allows for packet capture and multipacket reception. It is proved that the stability and throughput regions coincide in this small network. The same problem for a network with N sources and M destinations is considered next. The channel model is simplified in that packet capture and multipacket reception is no longer permitted. Bounds on the stability region are developed using the concept of stability rank and the throughput region of the system is compared to the bounds. Our results show that as the number of destination nodes increases, the stability and throughput regions diminish. Additionally, a previous conjecture that the stability and throughput regions coincide for a network of arbitrarily many sources is supported for a broadcast scenario by the results presented in this work.

Stable Throughput for Multicast With Random Linear Coding

This paper compares scheduling and coding strategies for a multicast version of a classic downlink problem. We consider scheduling strategies where, in each time slot, a scheduler observes the lengths of all queues and the connectivities of all links and can transmit the head-of-the-line packet from a single queue. We juxtapose this to a coding strategy that is simply a form of classical random linear coding. We show that there are configurations for which the stable throughput region of the scheduling strategy is a strict subset of the corresponding throughput region of the coding strategy. This analysis is performed for both time-invariant and time-varying channels. The analysis is also performed both with and without accounting for the impact on throughput of including coding overhead symbols in each encoded packet. Additionally, we compare coding strategies that only code within individual queues against a coding strategy that codes across separate queues. The strategy that codes across queues simply sends packets from all queues to all receivers. As a result, this strategy sends many packets to unnecessary recipients. We show, surprisingly, that there are cases where the strategy that codes across queues can achieve the same throughput region achievable by coding within individual queues.

Queueing Delay Analysis for Multicast With Random Linear Coding

We analyze the queueing delay performance when random linear coding is performed over packets randomly arriving at a source node for multicast transmission over packet erasure channels. We model random coding of packets as a bulk-service queueing system, where packets are served and depart the queue in groups. In this framework, we analyze two different block-based random linear coding schemes. The first scheme involves coding over a fixed blocksize, which leads to simpler analysis but also to a delay penalty for lightly-loaded systems. The second scheme adapts to the traffic load by allowing for a variable blocksize, thereby removing the delay penalty at low loads. We provide results on the maximum stable arrival rate of packets at the source and on the queueing delay as a function of the arrival rate.

Stability analysis of random linear coding across multicast sessions

We consider a problem of managing separate multicast sessions from a single transmitter. Each of K sessions has an associated packet stream, and a single transmitter must transmit these packet streams to a group of receivers. The multicast sessions are separate in the sense that each receiver only wants packets from one of the K streams. We will compare the maximum stable arrival rates that can be supported with and without using random linear coding across the K sessions. Intuitively, it seems that coding across sessions is not beneficial. Coding across sessions appears to introduce unnecessary additional delay since each receiver does not receive its next packet until it can decode the head-of-line packets from all K streams. However, we show that in many cases the maximum stable arrival rate that can be supported when coding across sessions is significantly greater than maximum stable arrival rate that can be supported when not coding across sessions. We provide a sufficient condition that indicates when coding across sessions is preferable. This condition is expressed in terms of the number of sessions, the number of receivers per session, and the reliability of the channels connecting the transmitter to the receivers.

On packet lengths and overhead for random linear coding over the erasure channel

We assess the practicality of random network coding by illuminating the issue of overhead and considering it in conjunction with increasingly long packets sent over the erasure channel. We show that the transmission of increasingly long packets, consisting of either of an increasing number of symbols per packet or an increasing symbol alphabet size, results in a data rate approaching zero over the erasure channel. This result is due to an erasure probability that increases with packet length. Numerical results for a particular modulation scheme demonstrate a data rate of approximately zero for a large, but finite-length packet. Our results suggest a reduction in the performance gains offered by random network coding.

Routing and rate control for coded cooperation in a satellite-terrestrial network

We address the problem of high-throughput, delay-constrained communication over a satellite-terrestrial network where terrestrial node mobility leads to intermittent links. Due to the short time-scale of link state durations, standard single-path routing protocols are disadvantaged by the delay incurred in determining that a route is unavailable and then finding a new route. Instead we focus on the approach of sending data over multiple paths simultaneously, and use random linear network coding as a distributed way of sending linearly-independent data on different paths. We present a routing and rate control protocol for coded multipath routing. This protocol specifies the fraction of offered traffic carried on each path, provides a congestion avoidance strategy to limit queueing delays in the network, and adapts quickly to time-varying connectivity. We outline our coded routing and rate-control strategy and also present simulation results from a mobile satellite-terrestrial network.

Rate Control for Network-Coded Multipath Relaying with Time-Varying Connectivity

This paper presents techniques for achieving high throughput in delay-constrained, multihop wireless communication networks with time-varying link connectivity. We develop a rate-controlled, multipath strategy using network coding, and compare its performance with that of multipath flooding and with the performance of traditional single-path strategies. These performance comparisons include both theoretical benchmarks and simulation results from cooperative relay scenarios, which incorporate different sets of link connectivity statistics that are drawn from field tests of mobile satellite communication terminals. The results indicate that with appropriate rate-control, network coding can provide throughput performance comparable to multipath flooding of the network while utilizing bandwidth nearly as efficiently as single-path routing.

An overlay architecture for throughput optimal multipath routing

Legacy networks are often designed to operate with simple single-path routing, like shortest-path, which is known to be throughput suboptimal. On the other hand, previously proposed throughput optimal policies (i.e., backpressure) require every device in the network to make dynamic routing decisions. In this work, we study an overlay architecture for dynamic routing such that only a subset of devices (overlay nodes) need to make dynamic routing decisions. We determine the essential collection of nodes that must bifurcate traffic for achieving the maximum multicommodity network throughput. We apply our optimal node placement algorithm to several graphs and the results show that a small fraction of overlay nodes is sufficient for achieving maximum throughput. Finally, we propose a heuristic policy (OBP), which dynamically controls traffic bifurcations at overlay nodes. In all studied simulation scenarios, OBP not only achieves full throughput, but also reduces delay in comparison to the throughput optimal backpressure routing.