Concerto: Experiences With A Real-World Manet System Based On Network Coding

While network coding offers many potential benefits for improving performance, practical experiences have been largely limited to simulation, emulation, and small-scale demonstrations. In this chapter we present CONCERTO, a fully implemented communication system based on a network coding protocol stack, and review observations and results from recently conducted 802.11-based MANET field trials contrasting the CONCERTO system against a candidate baseline protocol suite. These field trials were based on operational scenarios with mobile radios (pedestrian, vehicle, and airborne relay nodes) conducting a search and rescue mission using video, file transfer, chat, and situational awareness applications. The CONCERTO system was shown to support 2 to 3 times more video throughput than a state-of-the-art set of protocols, as well as up to 7 times distance-utility product. This chapter examines practical implementation issues of network coding on an embedded system and analyzes performance results.