ABSTRACT
In Chapter 7, we examine the reliability of lossy wireless networks. Wireless communications between devices can be lossy owing to a number of issues, such as channel fading, interference or mobility of devices. In some scenarios, such unreliability of wireless communications can be random hence better characterized from a stochastic perspective. In view of this, lossy wireless networks have been studied recently, where the transmission between each pair of nodes is successful with a certain probability. Network coding can be used to improve the reliability of wireless communications in these networks. In this chapter, a neighbor network coding scheme is proposed and network reliability using the coding scheme is investigated analytically, where the reliability is measured by the probability that every node in the network receives the packets from every other node. It is shown that reliability of networks can be improved using the proposed neighbor coding scheme. Further, closed-form upper and lower bounds on the network reliability are presented. Moreover, an optimal neighbor coding scheme that maximizes the probability that the packet broadcast from a designated source node can be received by all nodes in the network is discussed.
