Effects of MAC protocols on the performance of wireless network coding

Network coding provides a powerful mechanism for improving performance of wireless networks. In this paper, we study the effects of MAC protocols on the performance of wireless network coding. To model the MAC protocols, we introduce the dummy topology graph (DTG) of a wireless network that can properly describe the broadcast property of wireless channels. Based on the DTG, we derive theoretical formulations for computing the end-to-end delay of flows using the theory of network calculus. Numerical results show that the fairness of the MAC protocols can help to improve the performance of wireless network coding.