Network Coding Theory Part I: Single Source
Raymond W. Yeung, Shuo Li, Ning Cai, Zhen Zhang · Foundations and Trends® in Communications and Information Theory · 2006
Store-and-forward had been the predominant technique for transmitting information through a network until its optimality was refuted by network coding theory. Network coding offers a new paradigm for network communications and has generated abundant research interest in information and coding theory, networking, switching, wireless communications, cryptography, computer science, operations research, and matrix theory. We review the foundational work that has led to the development of network coding theory and discuss the theory for the transmission from a single source node to other nodes in the network. A companion issue discusses the theory when there are multiple source nodes each intending to transmit to a different set of destination nodes.