Efficient scheduling with random network coding in multi-relay wireless network

In this paper, we propose two novel efficient scheduling schemes with network coding in multi-relay wireless network to maximize the transmission efficiency. The first one uses adaptive forwarding with network coding （AF-NC）, in which each relay adaptively calculates the number of packets having innovative information according to the feedback from the sink. With AF-NC, duplicate packets are not sent, and the total number of time slots needed to complete transmission can be significantly reduced. The second scheme, named adaptive forwarding with network coding and retransmission （AFR-NC）, combines AF-NC with automatic repeat request （ARQ） to guarantee reliable end-to-end communication with limited resource occupation. Numerical results show that compared with simple forwarding with network coding （F-NC）, AF-NC has close successful delivery rate with dramatically less time slots, while AFR-NC achieves strict reliability with limited resource cost.