Network Coding Channel Virtualization Schemes for Satellite Multicast Communications

TL;DR

This paper introduces two innovative network channel virtualization schemes for satellite multicast communications, enabling efficient transmission by representing multiple receivers as a single virtual receiver, thus adapting to diverse channel conditions.

Contribution

The paper presents two novel virtualization schemes that simplify multicast transmission by modeling multiple receivers as one virtual receiver, improving adaptability to channel variations.

Findings

The schemes outperform per-receiver adaptive strategies in satellite multicast scenarios.

Virtualization reduces complexity and enhances transmission efficiency.

The approach effectively manages diverse channel conditions among receivers.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose two novel schemes to solve the problem of finding a quasi-optimal number of coded packets to multicast to a set of independent wireless receivers suffering different channel conditions. In particular, we propose two network channel virtualization schemes that allow for representing the set of intended receivers in a multicast group to be virtualized as one receiver. Such approach allows for a transmission scheme not only adapted to per-receiver channel variation over time, but to the network-virtualized channel representing all receivers in the multicast group. The first scheme capitalizes on a maximum erasure criterion introduced via the creation of a virtual worst per receiver per slot reference channel of the network. The second scheme capitalizes on a maximum completion time criterion by the use of the worst performing receiver channel as a virtual reference to the network. We apply such schemes to a GEO satellite scenario. We demonstrate the benefits of the proposed schemes comparing them to a per-receiver point-to-point adaptive strategy.