Adaptive Network Coding based on Node Mobility for Broadcasting in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) have limited network resources such as node battery capacity and wireless frequency bands. Therefore, to ensure efficient broadcast communication in such networks, it is critical to reduce unnecessary packet transfers and maximize the use of network resources and power. Network coding (NC) is a technique for reducing the number of transmitted packets over a network and maximizing the use of devices and network resources. The packet-reduction benefits obtained using NC depend considerably on network topology. In this study, we propose an NC method particularly designed for MANETs. In our approach, the nodes switch the type of transmission between an uncoded transmission (simple broadcast) and a coded transmission (NC) based on the estimated neighboring node’s proximity. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated using computer simulations. Our evaluations demonstrated that the proposed method can reduce the number of packets in the network without decreasing the packet delivery rate.