Network error control for Rapid and Reliable Data Delivery (R2D2)

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The widely anticipated fourth generation (4G) of mobile communications is expected to accommodate highly popular but bandwidth-demanding content on-the-move, ranging from high-definition multimedia streaming and online video gaming to software distribution and movie downloads. Long-Term Evolution (LTE), which is the dominant system for 4G networks, has introduced state-of-the-art fountain coding to support data broadcast and multicast services. The appealing property of fountain codes to adapt transmission rate to channel conditions, regardless of the number of receiving mobile users, is however constrained by a trade-off between latency and network overhead. The inherent requirement of content streaming for low latency can thus lead to a significant increase in overhead which, as recent research suggests, can be alleviated if adjacent mobile nodes form cooperative clusters. More specifically, 4G-enabled devices equipped with short-range communication capabilities, such as WiFi or Bluetooth, could request missing packets from neighbouring devices. The use of network coding in each cooperative cluster could further reduce traffic and energy consumption. Therefore, the combination of point-to-multipoint fountain coding and collaborative network coding at the application layer with point-to-point channel coding at the physical layer is an attractive alternative design to conventional automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocols, which can be less energy and bandwidth efficient. Nevertheless, there is great scope for tailoring the proposed scheme to the requirements of upcoming 4G broadband technologies and developing radically new paradigms to satisfy the increasing demand for streaming and downloading of high quality media in next generation networks communications. The proposed project aims to develop a mathematical framework to identify key relationships between the various network parameters, contribute to the understanding of network dynamics and assist in the system-level optimisation of network-coded architectures. The benefits of low-level optimisation will also be harnessed if separate designs of channel coding and network coding are replaced by joint designs for content distribution, which better leverage the benefits of redundancy and boost reliability without requiring significant changes to existing infrastructures. The project also aspires to delve into the emerging research field of network error correction and develop practical implementations of unified channel and network codes that deliver high reliability, low decoding complexity and increased security from malicious users.The proposed research will be carried out in consultation with international collaborators from universities in Portugal and Norway and its outcomes will benefit not only mobile ad-hoc architectures, but related systems too, such as broadband fixed wireless access networks, machine-to-machine communications and image & video processing. We anticipate that our work on network error control techniques will contribute to the reinforcement of the UK research base and play an important role in putting the UK at the forefront of developments in the arena of next-generation mobile technology.