Delay and energy aware instantly decodable network coding for multi-hop cooperative data exchange

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate multihop cooperative data exchange (CDE) using instantly decodable network coding (IDNC) in decentralized wireless nodes. In such model, we focus on how these wireless nodes can cooperate in limited transmission ranges without increasing the IDNC delay nor their energy consumption. For that purpose, we model the problem using a two stage game theory framework. We first model the problem using non-cooperative game theory where users jointly choose their desired transmission power selfishly in order to reduce their energy consumption and their IDNC delay. The optimal solution of this game allows the players in the next step to cooperate with each other through limited transmission ranges using cooperative game theory in partition form framework. Thereafter, a distributed multihop merge-and-split algorithm is defined to form coalitions where players maximize their utilities in terms of decoding delays and energy consumption. Indeed, the solution of the proposed framework determines the stable feasible partition for the wireless nodes with reduced interference and reasonable complexity. We demonstrate through simulations that the cooperation between nodes in the multihop cooperative scheme achieves a significant minimization of the energy consumption with respect to the most stable cooperative scheme in maximum transmission range without hurting the IDNC delay.