All-to-all data dissemination with network coding in dynamic MANETs

This paper investigates the problem of efficient data dissemination in Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANETs). A testbed is presented; which provides a realistic degree of mobility in experiments. The testbed consists of ten autonomous robots with mobile phones mounted on them. The mobile phones form an IEEE 802.11g ad hoc network to communicate with each other. A dynamic network topology is assumed, where the mobile devices form a cooperative cluster in order to communicate directly with each other. In the investigated scenario, the initial state is that each device carries a unique fragment of the full data set, and the goal is to exchange this data set among all devices. Several alternative strategies are presented that use UDP broadcast transmissions and Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) to facilitate the efficient exchange of information in the wireless network. An application is introduced; which implements these strategies on Nokia phones. Results collected during an extensive measurement campaign are presented, and the performance of several strategies is compared using numerous metrics. We observe that network coding can substantially reduce the completion time in our scenario, which also leads to significant energy savings.