TCP Acknowledgement Encapsulation in Coded Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

This work proposes a solution to overcome the inherent degradation of TCP performance in multi- hop wireless networks. Based on a Network Coding entity integrated between the TCP and the IP layer, we propose a mechanism to encapsulate TCP acknowledgments, which are transmitted along with other segments, thus reducing the number of frames to be sent. We assess the performance of the combination of these two techniques by means of an extensive simulation campaign, carried out using the ns-3 framework. The results show that the addition of the encapsulation scheme brings about a performance enhancement (around 15%), compared to a standard Network Coding scheme. On the other hand, the performance deteriorates when transmission errors occur.