Efficient Loss Recovery Based on Network Coding in Multicast Networks

Network coding is a promising technique for reliable multicast in wireless networks. In this paper, the characteristics of network coding opportunities are analyzed in multicast networks. The effect of the network coded packets, which can not be decoded, on the performance of network coding is studied. Based on these analyses, a Network Coding Loss Recovery (NCLR) scheme is proposed. NCLR allows receivers to store the packets, which they can not decode, and report the reception status to the sender. According to the feedback, NCLR prioritizes the packets that can contribute more to the overall transmission performance. Moreover in NCLR, not only original packets, but also encoded packets are scheduled and coded together to fully exploit coding opportunities. Simulation results show that NCLR improves significantly the multicast performance in terms of the number of retransmissions and recovery latency compared with existing schemes.