Experimental evaluation of collaborative data dissemination in WSNS using network coding and store and forward techniques

In recent years network coding has emerged as an innovative approach to disseminate information in wireless networks. It is generally believed that by using network coding consider- able amount of energy could be saved. However, in case of wireless sensor networks, significant challenges such as unreliable data transmission, limited transmission power of sensor nodes, external interference limit the performance gains to a great extent. The objective of this work is to evaluate the feasibility of network coding based communication schemes in WSNs. A simple communication protocol is implemented using conventional store and forward and network coding based technique. The testing of both strategies consist of experiments performed on real hardware to determine the viability of the store and forward and network coding protocols. Both techniques are evaluated with respect to performance metrics including packet loss ratio and power consumption.