A New Network Coding Based Routing Protocol for Enhancing Throughput Capacity in Wireless Mesh Networks

Network coding technology is always employed to improve the throughput of Wireless mesh networks (WMNs). However, traditional routing protocols based on network coding can only passively wait for coding opportunity, and the routing process is oblivious to coding operation. Taking into account the high throughput requirement in WMNs, a novel Coding awareness routing protocol with maximum benefit (CARMB) is proposed in this paper. The CARMB could actively create potential coding opportunities in the process of path establishment, which attempts to choose an appreciated route with more coding benefits among available path candidates. Simulations through NS-2 demonstrate that the CARMB performs better than traditional schemes in enhancing average end-to-end throughput and increasing coding opportunities as well as reducing average end-to-end delay. In particular, average end-to-end throughput and coding gain could be improved by 11% and 17% respectively compared with previous approaches.