Network Coding Layer for Reliable High-Throughput Data Transmission
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing communication protocols face challenges in balancing reliability and performance, particularly in scenarios where mechanisms for ensuring reliability cause significant degradation in performance or resource constraints, such as high delay, network congestion, or limited resources.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a communication protocol that uses coding techniques to form coded packets, allowing for tunable reliability and increased throughput, which can operate without feedback or with limited feedback, and can emulate UDP or TCP protocols to optimize performance based on network conditions and data characteristics.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If reliable protocols (TCP) are used to ensure accurate data delivery, then reliability is improved, but throughput decreases and delay increases due to retransmissions and rate reductions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a network coding layer as an intermediary between the application layer and the transport layer. This layer encodes data packets into coded packets that can be decoded at the receiver, replacing the traditional reliable delivery mechanisms. The network coding layer acts as a mediator that transforms the reliability problem into a coding/decoding problem, thereby improving throughput while maintaining reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter of data transmission from direct packet delivery to coded packet delivery. By transforming the data representation through network coding, the system achieves reliable delivery without the overhead of traditional acknowledgment and retransmission mechanisms, thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and throughput.
2Reliability
If reliable protocols (TCP) are used to ensure accurate data delivery, then reliability is improved, but delay increases due to retransmissions and rate reductions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-encoding data packets into coded packets at the transmitter before transmission. This preprocessing step ensures that the coded packets contain redundant information that enables direct decoding at the receiver without requiring retransmissions or rate adjustments, thereby reducing delay while maintaining reliability.
3Productivity
If UDP is used to achieve low delay and high throughput, then productivity is improved, but reliability decreases due to lack of error recovery mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The network coding layer serves as an intermediary that adds reliability mechanisms to UDP without requiring the overhead of TCP. By encoding data into coded packets with embedded redundancy, the system enables error recovery at the application layer while maintaining UDP's low-latency and high-throughput characteristics.
4Productivity
If network coding is implemented to improve throughput and reduce delay, then productivity is improved, but device complexity increases due to coding and decoding operations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces complex mechanical-style error recovery mechanisms (acknowledgments, retransmissions, flow control) with a more elegant mathematical coding/decoding system. This substitution simplifies the overall system architecture by replacing multiple interacting components with a single coding layer, thereby reducing device complexity while improving throughput.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, apparatus and computer program product providing improved communication performance through network coding is presented. Coded packets are formed at a source node, the coded packets comprising a combination of original packets at the source node. The coded packets are transmitted to at least one destination node using an unreliable protocol. A reconstruction is formed based on received coded packets at the destination node, wherein when a number of received coded packets are equal to the number of transmitted coded packets the forming a reconstruction comprises forming a complete reconstruction and wherein when the number of received coded packets is less than the number of transmitted coded packets the reconstruction comprises forming a best attempt at reconstruction.