Performance analysis of network-coding-based cooperative diversity in deep space communications

This paper propose a network-coding-based mutually cooperative transmission protocol (NMCTP). Because deep space network is sparse, a simple two-orbiter scenario is considered, where two “partners”- Orbiter A and Orbiter B in decode-forward mode - mutually cooperates in forwarding information to a common deep space station D. And one transmission round is divided into two phases. In the first phase, each partner sends its own frame; in the second phase, each partner sends an adaptive frame which is encoded according to the received frame from its partner. Compared with the known protocols, i.e., COPE protocol and repeating transmission protocol, NMCTP can achieve higher diversity gain and more efficient transmission.