Network coding: A remedy for receiver buffer blocking in the concurrent multipath transfer of data over multi-hop wireless networks

摘要

Multi-homed wireless devices equipped with multiple network interfaces that support the Concurrent Multipath Transfer (CMT) of data are an inevitable part of future wireless networks. The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is a multi-homed transport layer protocol that can support CMT. However, the receiver buffer blocking issue causes throughput degradation and prevents CMT from realizing its vast potential over multi-hop wireless networks. This paper is focused on integrating network coding with SCTP-based CMT to resolve the receiver buffer blocking problem. We propose an adaptive network coding mechanism for SCTP-CMT to desensitize the receiver against packet reordering and consequently eliminate the receiver buffer blocking problem. Our state-of-the-art network coding scheme uses a Q-learning algorithm to control the number of redundant packets based on the network dynamics. The effectiveness and soundness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated through simulations and proved to outperform original SCTP-CMT up to a factor of 62% in the presence of severe path dissimilarities and limited receiver buffer. Our proposed scheme is one step forward towards future multi-homed devices over multi-hop wireless networks.