Energy savings in wireless networks through network coding
Jasper Goseling, Richard J. Boucherie, Sonia Heemstra de Groot, Jan-Kees C. W. van Ommeren, Jos H. Weber · University of Twente Research Information · 2009
Emerging applications in wireless networks require more and more resources. One of the most important limitations is formed by battery life. Since battery technology is not keeping up with the increasing demand for resources, it is imperative that more efficient use is made of the available energy. Previous work on minimizing energy consumption in networks has focussed on, e.g., minimum cost routing, power control algorithms and cross-layer protocol design. However, exiting new opportunities arise from the advent of network coding. In a typical communication network sources and receivers can not communicate directly, other nodes in the network are therefore required to setup communication links. In state of the art networks this task is performed by routers which operate by forwarding incoming packets to other parts of the network. An important observation is that simply forwarding packets is not the only operation possible at these intermediate nodes. Network coding [1] arose in the information theory community around 2000 by demonstrating the potential benefit of allowing nodes to perform operations on incoming packets before retransmitting them. In what is by now its most popular form, network coding allows operations over a finite field, e.g. taking the bitwise xor of two packets. Network coding no longer keeps data from different connections independent, but mixes them.