Throughput-Delay Tradeoffs in Large-Scale MANETs with Network Coding

This paper characterizes the throughput-delay tradeoffs in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) with network coding, and compares results in the situation where only replication and forwarding are allowed in each node. The schemes/protocols achieving those tradeoffs in an effective and decentralized way are proposed and the optimality of those tradeoffs is established. The scenarios in which network coding can provide significant improvement on network performance are identified under different node mobility patterns (fast and slow mobility). The insights on when and how information mixing is beneficial for MANETs with multiple unicast and multicast sessions are provided. As far as we know, this is the first work characterizing scaling laws of throughput and delay of MANETs with network coding.