A fast and distributed algorithm for vehicular network coding

Abstract

It is significant to discover an efficient method to construct network codes such as a linear multicast or broadcast. It is valuable if we find a practical way to apply the technique to a vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) to improve the throughput to broadcast large data. It would be essential to discover a fast and distributed coding scheme since VANETs are well-known to change their topology quickly. In this paper, we present such a network coding algorithm suitable to a VANET. It will be guaranteed that the obtained code forms a two-dimensional linear multicast over a network that meets natural restrictions for a VANET on a multi-lane road. Due to the completely decentralized process, it is non-trivial to prove the correctness of construction even for the dimension 2. We will also discuss additional practical performance enhancement for the basic algorithm.