On applying network coding to underwater sensor networks

Abstract

High error rates and long propagation delays in underwater sensor networks call for efficient error-recovery schemes. We believe network coding is a promising technique for this purpose because of the broadcast nature of acoustic channels and computation capabilities at the sensor nodes. In this paper, we design a network coding scheme for underwater sensor networks and explore its performance through simulation. Our initial results indicate the benefits of using network coding for error recovery and the gains from coding at the source.