PNCR: A physical network coding framework for routing in wireless ad-hoc networks

In this paper, PNCR, a routing framework based on Physical Network Coding is proposed. PNCR enables shared utilization of the channel during the broadcast and multiple access phases of transmissions. These additional transmission opportunities can be observed as performance gains in terms of less packet delays and better network throughput. In this paper, we discuss the details of our proposed framework to utilize the virtues presented by Physical Network Coding. Existing work on Physical Network Coding is theoretic and does not present itself as a tool for multi-hop network deployment except for limited network topologies. Our work in this paper is an effort to utilize such techniques for networks of arbitrary structure. We evaluate the performance of our proposed framework using simulations and show that it achieves better throughput and less delivery delay per packet than conventional wireless routing solutions without Physical Network Coding.