Random-Linear-Network-Coding-based Cooperative Reliable Transmission Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Communication Networks

ZHANG Zhilin; PU Zhanqing; ZHU Yunan; LI Xueying; TIAN Jie; HUANG Haining

doi:10.11999/JEIT260648

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ZHANG Zhilin, PU Zhanqing, ZHU Yunan, LI Xueying, TIAN Jie, HUANG Haining. Random-Linear-Network-Coding-based Cooperative Reliable Transmission Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Communication Networks[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260648

Citation:

ZHANG Zhilin, PU Zhanqing, ZHU Yunan, LI Xueying, TIAN Jie, HUANG Haining. Random-Linear-Network-Coding-based Cooperative Reliable Transmission Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Communication Networks[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260648

Citation:

ZHANG Zhilin, PU Zhanqing, ZHU Yunan, LI Xueying, TIAN Jie, HUANG Haining. Random-Linear-Network-Coding-based Cooperative Reliable Transmission Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Communication Networks[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260648

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Random-Linear-Network-Coding-based Cooperative Reliable Transmission Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Communication Networks

doi: 10.11999/JEIT260648 cstr: 32379.14.JEIT260648

1.
Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
2.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3.
Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Underwater Acoustic Signal Processing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

Funds: The National Program for the Promotion of Young People’s Excellence (1S2024000478), The National Natural Science Foundation of China (62501589), The Special Research Assistant Funding Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Received Date: 2026-05-19
Accepted Date: 2026-07-29
Rev Recd Date: 2026-07-23

Available Online: 2026-08-08

Abstract

Abstract

Objective Reliable data delivery in underwater acoustic communication networks is challenged by high packet error rates, long propagation delays, limited bandwidth, and topology variations. In single-source dual-destination multi-hop transmission, the same data generation must be reliably delivered to two destination nodes. Packet losses at individual hops can accumulate during multi-hop forwarding and joint recovery at the two destinations, further complicating reliable delivery. Existing reliability-enhancement mechanisms, including retransmission, redundant forwarding, forward error correction, and multipath redundant transmission, generally rely on predetermined forwarding structures or fixed redundancy configurations. They have limited capability to exploit complementary coded information distributed among multiple relay nodes, resulting in insufficient joint recovery capability and high redundant transmission overhead. To address these limitations, a Network-Coded Cooperative Reliable Transmission Protocol for underwater acoustic communication networks (NCCRTP) is proposed. Methods NCCRTP operates on a generation basis and employs Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) over the Galois field $ \text{GF}({2}^{8}) $. To reduce coding overhead, each packet carries a Code IDentifier (CodeID) rather than the complete coding vector. The corresponding coding vector is recovered from a shared coding-vector dictionary at the relay node. During hop-by-hop forwarding, NCCRTP generates forward candidate structures subject to a residual-hop decreasing constraint and adaptively selects among three transmission modes: SINGLE, COOP, and BRANCH. SINGLE maintains a shared forwarding process toward the two destinations. COOP enables two relay nodes to jointly utilize linearly independent coded packets received at different nodes. BRANCH divides the transmission into two branches toward the different destinations. For each candidate structure, NCCRTP estimates the link success rate, calculates the required transmission budget, and evaluates the two-hop structural utility. The forwarding mode is then selected according to the tradeoff between recovery capability and transmission overhead. Results and Discussions Simulation results show that NCCRTP achieves the highest Joint Packet Delivery Ratio (JPDR) under both regular and random topologies. In the controlled comparison with Cooperative Uncoded transmission (CU), Single-branch Uncoded transmission (SU), and Single-branch Coded transmission (SC), NCCRTP consistently outperforms schemes using only cooperative forwarding or only RLNC. This result indicates that the reliability gain is jointly provided by distributed relay cooperation and joint utilization of linearly independent coded packets (Fig. 5). As the packet error rate increases or the end-to-end transmission depth increases from 3 to 7 hops, NCCRTP maintains a higher JPDR, demonstrating stronger robustness under lossy multi-hop conditions (Figs. 5(a) and 5(b)). In random topologies, Vector-Based Forwarding (VBF) and Focused Beam Routing (FBR) are separately combined with packet REPlication (REP) or RLNC to form the VBF+REP, VBF+RLNC, FBR+REP, and FBR+RLNC schemes (Figs. 6 and 7). Under medium-to-high packet error rate or multi-hop transmission conditions, NCCRTP improves the JPDR by up to approximately 50%, while reducing the equivalent transmission overhead per successful joint delivery by up to approximately 40% (Fig. 6). These results indicate that NCCRTP improves dual-destination reliability through adaptive forwarding-structure selection, link-quality-based transmission-budget control, and joint utilization of linearly independent coded packets rather than simply increasing redundant transmissions. Conclusions The reliability and redundant transmission overhead challenges in single-source dual-destination underwater acoustic multi-hop transmission are addressed by designing a cooperative transmission structure that enables RLNC to exploit distributed reception and complementary coded information among relay nodes. The proposed NCCRTP protocol adaptively selects the SINGLE, COOP, and BRANCH transmission modes according to residual-hop constraints, link-quality-based transmission-budget control, and two-hop structural utility evaluation. A lightweight coding-vector representation based on CodeID is also adopted to reduce the header overhead associated with carrying complete coding vectors. The protocol is evaluated under both regular and random topologies. The results show that: (1) NCCRTP achieves the highest JPDR among all compared schemes, demonstrating stronger joint recovery capability at the two destination nodes; (2) under medium-to-high packet error rates or multi-hop transmission conditions, NCCRTP improves the JPDR by up to approximately 50%; and (3) the equivalent transmission overhead per successful joint delivery is reduced by up to approximately 40%, indicating that the reliability gain mainly comes from adaptive structure selection, transmission-budget control, and joint utilization of linearly independent coded packets rather than excessive redundant transmissions. Future work will extend NCCRTP to more complex multi-source, multi-destination, multi-hop scenarios and further investigate its implementation and performance under node mobility and realistic underwater acoustic channel dynamics.
- Underwater acoustic communication networks,
- Underwater acoustic communication,
- Routing protocol,
- Reliable transmission protocol,
- Network coding

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References(20)

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