Unequal error protection for noncoherent random linear network coding

Since random linear network coding (RLNC) is susceptible to various errors, error control for RLNC is important and has attracted a lot of attention recently. Previous error control schemes for RLNC provide uniform error protection to all the packets in a session. However, in practice packets often have different significance and hence require different levels of protection. Furthermore, uniform error protection may be unnecessary or infeasible in some scenarios. In this paper, we investigate unequal error protection for RLNC. In particular, based on a novel signal space decomposition, we propose a new error control scheme that provides different levels of protection to two classes of packets transmitted to the same set of destination nodes.