A study on error correcting and diversity combiner scheme on multiple routes in wireless multi-hop networks

Wireless multi-hop networks have been much attention for the possibility of flexible construction of the network topology. One of the important and interesting techniques for multi-hop networks is a multi-path routing. By using the multipath routing, multiple routes from a source node to a destination node can be established. In this paper, we propose the error correcting and diversity combiner scheme on multiple routes in wireless multi-hop networks to reduce bit errors. The diversity combiner outputs the likelihood information from the packets transmitted via multiple routes. By feeding the likelihood information into the Viterbi decoder, the diversity gain can be obtained. We evaluate the packet error rate and the total traffic. As a result, the packet error rate can be improved. Furthermore, the total traffic can be reduced in the low E_b/N_o in spite of the traffic increase due to transmission via redundant routes.