Linear Network Error Correction Multicast/Broadcast/Dispersion/Generic Codes

Abstract: In the practical network communications, many internal nodes in the network are required to not only transmit messages but decode source messages. For different applications, four important classes of linear network codes in network coding theory, i.e., linear multicast, linear broadcast, linear dispersion, and generic network codes, have been studied extensively. More generally, when channels of communication networks are noisy, information transmission and error correction have to be under consideration simultaneously, and thus these four classes of linear network codes are generalized to linear network error correction (LNEC) coding, and we say them LNEC multicast, broadcast, dispersion, and generic codes, respectively. Furthermore, in order to characterize their efficiency of information transmission and error correction, we propose the (weakly, strongly) extended Singleton bounds for them, and define the corresponding optimal codes, i.e., LNEC multicast/broadcast/dispersion/generic MDS codes, which satisfy the corresponding Singleton bounds with equality. The existences of such MDS codes are discussed in detail by algebraic methods and the constructive algorithms are also proposed.