On the Wireless network coding with overhearing and index coding

We study the problem of Wireless Network Coding with imperfect overhearing, a joint coding/scheduling problem that arises naturally in multihop wireless networks. We map this problem to specific instances of index coding. In this direction, we propose an approach that decouples the problem of scheduling and coding, and ultimately results in comparison of different policies for evacuating packets from the system. Using this framework we propose a heuristic approach that is based on a rank minimization method proposed in the literature. We show by simulations that the proposed heuristic outperforms powerful schemes of the past like Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) and COPE-like greedy Immediately Decodable Network Codes (IDNC).