Network Coding Opportunities for Wireless Grids Formed by Mobile Devices

Wireless grids have potential in sharing communication, computational and storage resources making these networks more powerful, more robust, and less cost intensive. However, to enjoy the benefits of cooperative resource sharing, a number of issues should be addressed and the cost of the wireless link should be taken into account. The authors focus on the question how nodes can efficiently communicate and distribute data in a wireless grid. They show the potential of a network coding approach when nodes have the possibility to combine packets thus increasing the amount of information per transmission. Their implementation demonstrates the feasibility of network coding for wireless grids formed by mobile devices.