On Applying Network Coding in Network Assisted Device-to-Device Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communication has been shown to increase the spectrum and energy efficiency of local communication sessions in cellular networks. On the other hand, physical layer network coding (NWC) at a cellular base station — which can be employed without D2D functionality — can also improve the efficiency of a cellular network that carries local traffic. In this paper we study the joint application of D2D and NWC technologies with the purpose of further improving the performance of cellular networks that employ either D2D or NWC alone. We find that the joint D2D and NWC scheme yields additional gains, provided that the network exercises proper mode selection (MS) and resource allocation. Specifically, a cellular network that supports both D2D and NWC can achieve higher spectral and energy efficiency than a network that employs only one of these schemes.