IMIX: Integration of Intra-flow and Inter-flow Wireless Network Coding

Wireless network coding has been shown to reduce the number of transmissions by exploiting the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. Multiple packets may be encoded into a single packet when their respective next hops have enough information to decode them. Previous research has shown that packets belonging to different flows may be encoded (interflow coding) when they are passing through a common router. Similarly, it has also been shown that coding packets of the same flow (intra-flow coding) may provide better reliability by not relying on the reception of any single packet. In this work, we first present IMIX, an intra-flow wireless network coding scheme which has the potential to save transmissions and therefore improve network throughput. We then propose IMIX, the first design to the best of our knowledge, that can benefit from integrating inter and intra flow wireless network coding. Finally, we show through trace based evaluations that IMIX can reduce the total number of transmissions by 21-30%.