Hybrid Cooperative-Network Coding Medium Access Control for High-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks

Past research has shown that Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) is not a particularly favorable environment for cooperative networks. This observation suggests that other medium access schemes, like scheduled TDMA, may enable cooperation to yield more substantial improvements over conventional techniques. From this point of view, a hybrid cooperative-network coding protocol (called Phoenix, and so far only proposed for CSMA) has been adapted for Personal Area Network communications. The improvements brought by cooperative-NC techniques in this setting have roughly doubled with respect to the CSMA scenario, with gains of over 20% with respect to standard cooperative systems.