A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for
information delivery with network coding over time-varying network topologies. In one embodiment, the method comprises decomposing a sequence of topology graphs that model a time-varying
network topology into a plurality of virtual graphs, where each virtual graph of the plurality of virtual graphs corresponds to a distinct traffic class, and the virtual topology graph representing a partial topology of a time-varying network. The method also includes selecting a
network code for each virtual graph in the plurality of the virtual graphs to meet requirements of the distinct traffic class corresponding to said each topology graph, where the
network code is used to
encode packets of the associated traffic class, and
processing packets of each traffic class using the
network code determined by its corresponding virtual topology and the requirements of said each traffic class, including using a virtual buffer
system to implement the network code corresponding to each traffic class over the
physical network topology. The method also includes using a scheduler to determine the transmission schedules for each output packet from the virtual buffer
system of each traffic class where the scheduling decisions are based, at least in part, on the QoS requirements of each class.