Efficient network coding transmission in 2-hop multi-channel cognitive radio networks

In cognitive radio networks (CRNs), there is no guarantee on the availability of spectrum for the opportunistic communications between cognitive radio (CR) users. Transmission design plays a key role in leveraging the benefits of CRNs. In this paper, we propose an efficient batch transmission scheme for the data transmission in multi-channel CRNs with practical lossy channels. The proposed scheme exploits the dynamic spectrum opportunities by combining opportunistic routing strategy with network coding based multi-channel transmission. We derive network performance measures of the scheme in terms of batch delay, which provide better insights into the data transmission capability than packet based link delay analysis. Our analyses, validated by simulations, show that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms others, reducing batch delay by up to 60%.