The Uplink of Distributed MIMO: Wireless Network Coding versus Coordinated Multipoint

In this paper, we propose an advanced transmission protocol for the next generation wireless access network by using the so-called wireless network coding (WNC). As an alternative to conventional cooperative multipoint (CoMP) in 3GPP standard, WNC enables access points cooperation, which combines the flows using network coding function, instead of sending multiple separate information flows to the hub base station. It is worth noting that the wireless network coding in principle allows cooperation with less backhaul load compared to the CoMP transmission, while enjoying a superior performance compared with CoMP in terms of both bandwidth and energy efficiency.