Selecting Optimal Parameters of Random Linear Network Coding for Wireless Sensor Networks

This work studies how to select optimal code parameters of Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). With Rateless Deluge [?] the authors proposed to apply Network Coding (NC) for Over-the-Air Programming (OAP) in WSNs, and demonstrated that with NC a significant reduction in the number of transmitted packets can be achieved. However, NC introduces additional computations and potentially a non-negligible transmission overhead, both of which depend on the chosen coding parameters. Therefore it is necessary to consider the trade-off that these coding parameters present in order to obtain the lowest energy consumption per transmitted bit. This problem is analyzed and suitable coding parameters are determined for the popular Tmote Sky platform. Compared to the use of traditional RLNC, these parameters enable a reduction in the energy spent per bit which grows as the generation size grows. These results also indicate that the use of high field sizes could be problematic from an energy point of view due to the additional complexity.