Physical Layer Network Coding for Wireless Cooperative Multicast Flows

SUMMARY It has been proved that wireless network coding can increase the throughput of multi-access system [2] and bi-directional system [5] by taking the advantage of the broadcast nature of electromagnetic waves. In this paper, we introduce the wireless network coding to cooperative multicast system. We establish a basic 2-source and 2-destination cooperative system model with arbitrary number of relays (2 − N − 2 system). Then two regenerative network coding (RNC) protocols are designed to execute the basic idea of network coding in complex field (RCNC) and Galois field (RGNC) respectively. We illuminate how network coding can enhance the throughput distinctly in cooperative multicast system. Power allocation schemes as well as precoder design are also carefully studied to improve the system performance in terms of system frame error probability (SFEP).