MWNCast: Cooperative multicast based on moving window network coding

Cooperative multicast is an effective solution for the bottleneck problem of single-hop broadcast in wireless networks. By incorporating with the random linear network coding technique, the previously proposed schemes can reduce the number of retransmissions significantly. However, these schemes may incur a large decoding delay at the receivers, In addition, the centralized scheduling methods of these schemes depend on the explicit feedback mechanism, which is not practical for a large size network. In this paper, we address the decoding delay and feedback storm problems in cooperative multicast. A cooperative multicast protocol named MWNCast is proposed based on a novel moving window network coding technique. Theoretical models are developed for analyzing the performance of the proposed scheme. Simulation results show that MWNCast outperforms the existing schemes by achieving better tradeoff between the throughput and decoding delay, meanwhile keeping the packet loss probability and decoding complexity at a very low level without explicit feedback.