Coding Improves the Throughput-Delay Trade-off in Mobile Wireless Networks

Abstract: We study the throughput-delay performance tradeoff in large-scale wireless ad hoc networks. It has been shown that the per source-destination pair throughput can be improved from Theta(1/sqrt(n log n)) to Theta(1) if nodes are allowed to move and a 2-hop relay scheme is employed. The price paid for such an improvement on throughput is large delay. Indeed, the delay scaling of the 2-hop relay scheme is Theta(n log n) under the random walk mobility model. In this paper, we employ coding techniques to improve the throughput-delay trade-off for mobile wireless networks. For the random walk mobility model, we improve the delay from Theta(n log n) to Theta(n) by employing Reed-Solomon codes. Our approach maintains the diversity gained by mobility while decreasing the delay.