Three schemes for wireless coded broadcast to heterogeneous users

We study and compare three coded schemes for the single-server wireless broadcast of multiple description coded content to heterogeneous users. The users (sink nodes) demand different numbers of descriptions over links with different packet loss rates. The three coded schemes are based on the LT codes, growth codes, and randomized chunked codes. The schemes are compared on the basis of the total number of transmissions required to deliver the demands of all users, which we refer to as the server (source) delivery time. We design the degree distributions of LT codes by solving suitably defined linear optimization problems, and numerically characterize the achievable delivery time for different coding schemes. We find that including a systematic phase (uncoded transmission) is significantly beneficial for scenarios with low demands, and that coding is necessary for efficiently delivering high demands. Different demand and error rate scenarios may require very different coding schemes. Growth codes and chunked codes do not perform as well as optimized LT codes in the heterogeneous communication scenario.