Efficient Communication over Cellular Networks with Network Coding in Emergency Scenarios

Abstract: Emergency communications requires reliability and flexibility for disaster recovery and relief operation. Based upon existing commercial portable devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets, laptops), we propose a network architecture that uses cellular networks and WiFi connections to deliver large files in emergency scenarios under the impairments of wireless channel such as packet losses and intermittent connection issues. Network coding (NC) is exploited to improve the delivery probability. We first review the state-of-the-art of NC for emergency communications. Then, we present the proposed network architecture which utilizes multiple radio interfaces of portable devices to support data delivery. A random linear NC scheme is exploited at source to enhance the reliability for content delivery against packet losses. Besides, an analytical model for the successful decoding probability in linear NC is derived. Finally, we evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture with NC in terms of the delivery ratio of content for intermittent connectivity scenarios.