Throughput improvement for wireless networks using MIMO network coding

Modern wireless communication networks demand higher throughput. As conventional methods that use more bandwidth or larger modulation levels are limited, new methods for better system performance are suggested. Multiple antenna systems where Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO), used to enhance channel capacity, and Network Coding (NC) are examples of such methods. In this paper, NC is used in conjunction with MIMO technique in order to obtain advantages of both mentioned techniques. A simple packet based network coding for butterfly network topology with MIMO is modeled and simulated. The system is tested over different wireless fading channel models and with different MIMO arrangements. As a result the performance of 2×2 combined Multi-Inputs Multi-Output with Network Coding (MIMO-NC) have shown improved throughput over the original MIMO system by about 33% on the expense of slight loss in error performance at relatively high signal-to-noise power ratios.