Modeling Pairwise XOR Network Coding In Duty-Cycled Wireless Sensor Networks

Transceiver duty-cycling (DC) is a popular technique to conserve energy in a wireless sensor network (WSN). In our previous work [SoICT 2016: 187-194], we introduce a modeling approach for wireless networks of time-varying topology whose nodes duty cycle periodically. By switching nodes (transceivers) OFF, we however inescapably reduce the attainable throughput to a certain degree. For the throughput reduction problem, in this paper, we consider the application of XOR-pairwise network coding (NC) approach to by combining packets destined for distinct users. Through numerous simulation studies and in comparison with the perflow rates produced by the optimization step without NC, we found that the NC is really efficient and applicable to arbitrary topology DC WSNs for improving the total throughput of the networks although it may change the maxmin rate allocation to individual flows.