Network Coding in the Bidirectional Cross: A Case Study for the System Throughput and Energy

This paper presents a detailed performance evaluation of inter-session network coding in wireless meshed networks in terms of throughput and energy consumption. A full analytical model is given for three different communication approaches for the bidirectional cross topology using an IEEE 802.11 medium access. One of the three approaches is pure relaying, while the other two approaches are using network coding with and without overhearing of other flows. The main outcome of the paper is that network coding without and with overhearing can increase the throughput by the factor of two and four, respectively, for high load scenarios. Furthermore we show that the energy/bit ratio is decreased by the use of network coding approaches, underlining that the added complexity of network coding pays off when considering the overall system.