Physical-layer Network Coding Research Articles

Multi-Input Physical Layer Network Coding in Two-Dimensional Wireless Multihop Networks

This paper proposes multi-input physical layer network coding (multi-input PLNC) for high speed wireless communication in two-dimensional wireless multihop networks. In the proposed PLNC, all the terminals send their packets simultaneously for the neighboring relays to maximize the network throughput in the first slot, and all the relays also do the same to the neighboring terminals in the second slot. Those simultaneous signal transmissions cause multiple signals to be received at the relays and the terminals. Signal reception in the multi-input PLNC uses multichannel filtering to mitigate the difficulties caused by the multiple signal reception, which enables the two-input PLNC to be applied. In addition, a non-linear precoding is proposed to reduce the computational complexity of the signal detection at the relays and the terminals. The proposed multi-input PLNC makes all the terminals exchange their packets with the neighboring terminals in only two time slots. The performance of the proposed multi-input PLNC is confirmed by computer simulation. The proposed multi-input physical layer network coding achieves much higher network throughput than conventional techniques in a two-dimensional multihop wireless network with 7 terminals. The proposed multi-input physical layer network coding attains superior transmission performance in wireless hexagonal multihop networks, as long as more than 6 antennas are placed on the terminals and the relays.

On Secure CDRT With NOMA and Physical-Layer Network Coding

This paper proposes a new scheme to enhance the secrecy performance of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-based coordinated direct relay transmission (CDRT) systems with an untrusted relay. The physical-layer network coding (PNC) and the NOMA schemes are combined to improve spectrum efficiency. Furthermore, inter-user interference and friendly jamming signals are utilized to suppress the eavesdropping ability of the untrusted relay without compromising the acceptance quality of legitimate users. Specifically, the far user in the first slot and the near user in the second slot act as jammers that generate jamming signals to ensure secure transmissions of confidential messages. We investigate the secrecy performance of the NOMA-based CDRT systems with the PNC scheme and derive the closed-form expression for the ergodic secrecy sum rate. The asymptotic analysis at a high signal-to-noise ratio is performed to obtain more insights. Finally, simulation results are presented to demonstrate the proposed scheme’s effectiveness and the theoretical analysis’s correctness.

Bit Error Rate Performance of Cooperative Free Space Optical Communication System with Hierarchical Modulation and Physical Layer Network Coding

Bit Error Rate Performance of Cooperative Free Space Optical Communication System with Hierarchical Modulation and Physical Layer Network Coding

Coding in Diffusion-Based Molecular Nanonetworks: A Comprehensive Survey

Diffusion-based molecular nanonetworks exploit the diffusion of molecules, e.g., in free space or in blood vessels, for the purpose of communication. This article comprehensively surveys coding approaches for communication in diffusion-based molecular nanonetworks. In particular, all three main purposes of coding for communication, namely source coding, channel coding, and network coding, are covered.We organize the survey of the channel coding approaches according to the different channel codes, including linear block codes, convolutional codes, and inter-symbol interference (ISI) mitigation codes. The network coding studies are categorized into duplex network coding, physical-layer network coding, multi-hop nanonetwork coding, performance improvements of network-coded nanosystems, and network coding in mobile nanonetworks. We also present a comprehensive set of future research directions for the still nascent area of coding for diffusion-based molecular nanonetworks; specifically, we outline research imperatives for each of the three main coding purposes, i.e., for source, channel, and network coding, as well as for overarching research goals.

DNN-Based Physical-Layer Network Coding for Visible Light Communications

The key difference between visible light communication (VLC) and radio frequency (RF) communication is the former’s line-of-sight (LOS) transmission nature, and hence a relay node has to be adopted for VLC to extend its coverage. Physical-layer network coding (PNC) has the advantage of doubling the throughput of a two-way relay network (TWRN), where two end nodes exchange information via the help of a relay, compared with the conventional store-and-forward routing strategy. Although PNC has been studied for VLC in the literature, the state-of-the-art schemes are highly inefficient, requiring tight phase synchronization between the two end nodes, and hence difficult to realize. This paper proposes the application of a deep neural network (DNN) to a PNC VLC system, named DP-VLC, that enables misaligned phases and can deal with the light channel gains and noises in a satisfactory manner without introducing additional computation complexities. We implement DP-VLC using the universal software radio peripheral (USRP) software radio platform and a self-developed VLC optical front-end using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and photo-diodes (PDs). We find that irregular constellations generated by DP-PNC can be transmitted and recovered in a 1.5 m VLC link effectively. Experimental results show that our DP-PNC prototype performs better than conventional PNC VLC system when the signal-interference-to-noise ratio (SINR) of received optical signals is larger than 13.63 dB and can achieve a throughput of up to 77.38 Mbps in a 20 MHz channel under PNC scheme when the SINR is 22.86 dB. More importantly, we find that DP-VLC performs even better than fixed-constellation PNC system in the saturated SINR regime (e.g., 20–25 dB) where non-linear effects may happen compared with moderate SINR regimes (e.g., 10–20 dB), showing its adaptability to unpredictable impairments in optical links. Our first attempt at realizing DNN-based optical PNC in a TWRN has paved the way for future PNC-enhanced VLC systems.

PNC Enabled IIoT: A General Framework for Channel-Coded Asymmetric Physical-Layer Network Coding

This paper investigates the application of physical-layer network coding (PNC) to Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in which a controller and a robot are out of each other’s transmission range, and they exchange messages with the assistance of a relay. We particularly focus on a scenario where 1) the controller has more information to transmit than the robot; 2) the channel of the controller is stronger than that of the robot, and both users have nearly the same transmit power. To reduce the communication latency, we put forth an asymmetric PNC transmission scheme in which the controller transmits more information than the robot by exploiting its stronger channel gain in the uplink of PNC. However, the current channel-coded PNC requires the two users to transmit the same amount of source information in order to preserve the linearity of the two users’ channel codes at the relay for successful decoding. Therefore, a challenge in the asymmetric PNC transmission scheme is how to construct a channel decoder at the relay, considering that a superimposed symbol at the relay contains different amounts of source information from the controller and robot. To fill this gap, we propose a lattice-based encoding and decoding scheme in which the robot and controller encode and modulate their information in lattices with different lattice construction levels. The network-coded messages are decoded level-by-level in the lattice. Our design is versatile on that the controller and the robot can freely choose their modulation orders based on their channel power, and the design is applicable for arbitrary channel codes, not just for one particular channel code. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed channel-coded asymmetric PNC transmission scheme.

Selective PNC in satellite-terrestrial network over non-identical fading channels

We analyze the performance of a twoway satellite-terrestrial decode-and-forward (DF) relay network over non-identical fading channels. In particular, selective physical-layer network coding (SPNC) is employed in the proposed network to improve the average end-to-end throughput performance. More specifically, by assuming that the DF relay performs instantaneous throughput comparisons before performing corresponding protocols, we derive the expressions of system instantaneous bit-error-rate (BER), instantaneous end-to-end throughput, average end-to-end throughput, single node detection (SND) occurrence probability and average end-to-end BER over non-identical fading channels. Finally, theoretical analyses and Monte Carlo simulation results are presented. Evaluations show that: 1) SPNC protocol outperforms the conventional physical-layer network coding (PNC) protocol in infrequent light shadowing (ILS), average shadowing (AS) and frequent heavy shadowing (FHS) Shadowed-Rician fading channels. 2) As the satellite-relay channel fading gets more severe, SPNC protocol can achieve more performance improvement than PNC protocol and the occurrence probability of SND protocol increases progressively. 3) The occurrence probability increase of SND has a beneficial effect on the average end-to-end throughput in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, while the occurrence probability decrease of SND has a beneficial effect on the average end-to-end BER in high-SNR regime.

3D trajectory design and resource management for UAV-assisted multi-user two-way transmission system

With the advantages of mobility and high spectrum efficiency, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enabled two-way relay technology has practical significance in improving the network's throughput. This paper proposes a UAV-enabled two-way relaying framework, in which a UAV assists the exchange of information between multiple pairs of ground users (GUs) based on the physical layer network coding. We consider the probabilistic line-of-sight (LoS) links of the UAV-GU channels, and formulate an optimization problem with the goal of maximizing the overall rate of the two-way relaying network, by jointly optimizing the time-slots pairing, power allocation, and three-dimensional (3D) trajectory of the UAV. To address the formulated non-convex problem, we first propose an efficient offline algorithm that decomposes the problem into four low-complex subproblems, which are optimized iteratively by using the successive convex approximation (SCA) technique and the coordinate descent (BCD) method. To fully utilize the instantaneous channel state information (CSI) of the two-way relaying network during the flight of the UAV, we also propose a hybrid offline-online algorithm to further improve the performance of the network on the basis of the offline algorithm. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid offline-online algorithm improves the network's rate by about 20 percent compared to the offline algorithm, and validate that the 3D UAV trajectory optimization is superior to boost the overall rate compared to the traditional two-dimensional (2D) UAV trajectory optimization.

Bit Error Rate Analysis of Physical Layer Network Coding Spatially Modulated Full-Duplex Nodes Based Bidirectional Wireless Relay Network

In this paper, Physical Layer Network coding (PLNC)-Spatially Modulated Full-Duplex (SMFD) nodes based two-way/bidirectional cooperative wireless relay network is proposed. The PLNC-SMFD-based system is a viable technology in the field of next-generation wireless networks to enhance spectral efficiency. In the proposed system model, both the source nodes and relay nodes are employed with 2 × 2 antenna configurations where 2 bits of information are exchanged between the source nodes through a relay node. Transmit antenna selection at the source nodes is based on the incoming bitstreams. For instance, the transmit antenna is selected at PLNC-SMFD nodes based on the data symbols of the Most Significant Bit (MSB). Whereas the selected transmit antenna sends the Least Significant Bit (LSB) bit of data symbol at any time instance. Further, the self-interference at the transmitting and receiving nodes is modeled as Gaussian with the thermal noise power as a variance. The Bit Error Rate (BER) analytical expressions for both the upper and lower bound are derived in a Rayleigh Fading channel background. It has been graphically shown that the BER performance of the proposed system analyzes the effect of self-interference.

Research on Performance of Cooperative FSO Communication System Based on Hierarchical Modulation and Physical Layer Network Code

To solve the problem that the channel conditions in asymmetric cooperative FSO communication systems are not fully utilized, and the data reliability deteriorates due to high-order modulation, we proposed a layered modulation, joint physical-layer network coding scheme. In this scheme, we first designate the data priority of the information to be transmitted at the source node. Then, the transmission power of different proportions is allocated to the data based on its priority. Then, the modulated data is sent to each node, and physical-layer network coding is performed on the received data at the relay node. Finally, the relay node sends the encoded information to the destination node, and the destination node recovers the original information using the physical-layer network coding scheme. The simulation results showed that when the average signal-to-noise ratio of the channel was 15 dB, the BER of the cooperative FSO communication system could be reduced to below . In the strong atmospheric turbulence channel, the cooperative FSO communication system can obtain a signal-to-noise ratio gain of about 1.5 dB. Under strong atmospheric turbulence, this scheme could also improve the average channel capacity performance of a cooperative FSO communication system.

Performance analysis of physical-layer network coding with QPSK modulation in wireless IoT networks

In this paper, we mathematically analyze bit-error rate (BER) and diversity order of physical-layer network coding (PNC) scheme in the two-way relay channel (TWRC) under the assumption of multiple antennas at relay node. We assume the quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation for simple data transmission in IoT applications, and max–min transmit antenna selection (TAS) scheme in the broadcast (BC) phase for achieving full diversity gain. In particular, we obtain the upper bound of BER at the multiple access (MA) phase, while deriving the exact BER performance at the BC phase. To the best our knowledge, the mathematical analysis in this paper is the first analytical results in the literature. Through computer simulations, the analytical results are validated.

IRS-Assisted Physical Layer Network Coding Over Two-Way Relay Fading Channels

This article investigates the performance of intelligent reflective surfaces (IRS)-aided physical layer network coding (PNC) in two-way relaying channels (TWRC). Specifically, IRS is used to eliminate carrier phase offset (CPO) at the relay node. To this end, the IRS reflectors’ phase shifts are optimized to align the received signals from two source nodes at the relay. This facilitates using a simple mapping function at the relay to map the superimposed signal to a network-coded signal. Two scenarios are considered, the first of which assumes that each source node is served by a separate IRS panel, while the second scenario considers the more challenging case where only one IRS panel is available for the two source nodes. In the latter case, the IRS panel is seen by both source nodes and its phase shifts are optimized to mitigate the CPO problem while maximizing the received signal amplitude at the relay. This optimization problem is formulated and solved over the complex circle manifold. Finally, we extend the IRS-assisted PNC system to include channel coding and higher modulation orders, for which a repeat accumulate (RA) channel-coded IRS-aided PNC scheme is proposed for general quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals. A belief propagation (BP) based algorithm is designed to decode the network-coded sequences over a q-Ring using modular arithmetic. Our simulation results validate the theoretical error expressions derived for the two-IRS scenario as well as the efficacy of the proposed manifold optimization approach for the one-IRS scenario. The results also confirm the efficacy of the designed channel-coded IRS-aided PNC using high QAM modulation orders.

Joint polar with physical layer network coding and massive MIMO: performance analysis

Large spectral efficiency, reliability, coverage, and energy efficiency are all major requirements to meet the targets of fifth-generation (5G) and beyond communication networks. The transmitted signal is usually susceptible to errors that reduced reliability and throughput of the system. Physical layer network coding (PLNC) is a promising technology to achieve better throughput, low latency, and high transmission rate. This paper considers the combination of PLNC with polar coding using massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system to enhance the transmission reliability by reducing the bit error rate (BER) and improve system reliability. This arrangement is investigated in two-way wireless relay transmission over millimetre wave (mmWave) band channel model. The results of the extensive simulation tests demonstrated improvements in throughput and BER achieved using polar code with PLNC and a sufficient number of antenna elements in the mMIMO system. The BER performance of polar-coded PLNC arrangement outperformed PLNC without coding for 128 and 256 receiving antenna elements in the relay node regardless the number of antenna elements in the user equipment side. The tests showed that the combination of the polar code with PLNC and MIMO system is not encouraging at low Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

Analysis of PAM Mapping for Convolutional-Coded Physical-Layer Network Coding

In this letter, we investigate iterative decoding for convolutional-coded physical-layer network coding operated with bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM-PNC) over two-way relay channel (TWRC). The superimposed constellation at the relay from two users may not remain the same characteristic as the original modulation at the users. Thus, we first propose a design of mapping for PAM modulations at the users and enable the superimposed constellation of the maximum squared Euclidean weight (MSEW). Then, we analyze the PNC mappings by means of an extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart. The analysis and simulation results show that the proposed mapping can provide a good match to a given outer channel code. In particular, it achieves much better error performance than the conventional semi-Gray and binary-bit mappings at high SNR region for both 8-PAM and 16-PAM modulations.

Low Complexity Majority-Logic Decoding for LDPC-Coded PNC Systems

In this letter, we propose majority-logic decoding (MLGD) algorithms of low complexity for low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded physical-layer network coding (PNC) in a two-way relay channel (TWRC). In particular, we decode the transmit combination of two-user messages from the superimposed signal and then map the XOR message of two users. By exploiting the superposition rules of PNC, we develop hard decision-based and reliability-based decoding algorithms, i.e., modified one-step MLGD (M-OSMLGD) and iterative soft reliability-based decoding (M-ISRB), to iteratively update the combination of two-user messages. Moreover, we propose an improved M-ISRB (IM-ISRB) decoding to update the external reliability of the combination of two-user messages in each iteration. Simulation results show that the proposed decoding algorithms can achieve effective an trade-off between complexity and decoding performance for LDPC-coded PNC systems.

Sum-rate maximization for UAV-enabled two-way relay systems

In this paper, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-enabled two-way relay system with Physical-layer Network Coding (PNC) protocol is considered. A rotary-wing UAV is applied as a mobile relay to assist two ground terminals for information interaction. Our goal is to maximize the sum-rate of the two-way relay system subject to mobility constraints, propulsion power consumption constraints, and transmit power constraints. The formulated problem is not easy to solve directly because it is a mixed integer non-convex optimization problem. Therefore, we decompose it into three sub-problems, and use the mutation arithmetic of the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Successive Convex Approximation (SCA) to dispose. Besides, a high-efficiency iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain a locally optimal solution by jointly optimizing the time slot pairing, the transmit power allocation, and the UAV trajectory design. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed design achieves significant gains over the benchmark designs.

Joint Trajectory and Resource Optimization for UAV-Aided Two-Way Relay Networks

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided two-way relay networks with multiple terrestrial user pairs is investigated, where a fix-wing UAV is served as a two-way relay to assist information transmission. We aim to maximize the total rate of the two-way relay networks while the quality of service (QoS) being guaranteed. A novel relay strategy, namely <i>time-slots pairing</i>, is proposed by exploiting physical-layer network coding (PNC) protocol. Specifically, the UAV receives and buffers the signals from the scheduled user pair when the UAV approaches one of them, then forwards the modulated signal when the UAV is close to the other. As a result, a non-convex total rate maximization problem is formulated by joint trajectory design and resource optimization. To solve this problem, we first decompose it into three sub-problems, and then a three-step iterative algorithm that can effectively handle the non-convex problem with no worse than a polynomial complexity is developed leveraging the block coordinate descent (BCD) technique and successive convex approximation (SCA) method. Simulation results finally illustrate that: 1) Compared with amplify-and-forward (AF) or decode-and-forward (DF) protocols, the proposed design based on PNC protocol can significantly improve the total rate of the two-way relay networks; 2) the time-slots pairing relay strategy always achieves a significant enhancement on performance than the traditional non-time-slots pairing relay strategy; 3) the time-slots pairing relay strategy is more favorable for the mobile PNC relay networks since it can well resist the degradation of the entire networks caused by users&#x2019; increased service quality requirements.

Convergence Analysis of Joint Channel Decoding and Physical Layer Network Coding

Convergence Analysis of Joint Channel Decoding and Physical Layer Network Coding

Secure Physical Layer Network Coding versus Secure Network Coding.

When a network has relay nodes, there is a risk that a part of the information is leaked to an untrusted relay. Secure network coding (secure NC) is known as a method to resolve this problem, which enables the secrecy of the message when the message is transmitted over a noiseless network and a part of the edges or a part of the intermediate (untrusted) nodes are eavesdropped. If the channels on the network are noisy, the error correction is applied to noisy channels before the application of secure NC on an upper layer. In contrast, secure physical layer network coding (secure PLNC) is a method to securely transmit a message by a combination of coding operation on nodes when the network is composed of set of noisy channels. Since secure NC is a protocol on an upper layer, secure PLNC can be considered as a cross-layer protocol. In this paper, we compare secure PLNC with a simple combination of secure NC and error correction over several typical network models studied in secure NC.

Backscatter Assisted NOMA-PLNC Based Wireless Networks

In this paper, sum capacity maximization of the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-based wireless network is studied in the presence of ambient backscattering (ABS). Assuming that ABS is located next to far nodes, it improves the signal strength of far node cluster. By applying suitable successive interference cancellation (SIC) operation, far node cluster act as an internet of things (IoT) reader. Moreover, to improve the uplink performance of the nodes, a physical layer network coding (PLNC) scheme is applied in the proposed network. Power optimization is employed at the access point (AP) to enhance the downlink performance with total transmit power constraint and minimum data rate requirement per user constraint using Lagrangian’s function. In addition, end-to-end outage performance of the proposed wireless network is analyzed to enhance each wireless link capacity. Numerical results evident that the outage performance of the proposed network is significantly improved while using the ABS. Furthermore, the average bit error rate (BER) performance of the proposed wireless network is studied to improve the reliability. Simulation results are presented to validate the analytical expressions.