Provides a tutorial on the basics of network coding theory. Divided into two parts, this book presents a unified framework for understanding the basic notions and fundamental results in network coding. It is aimed at students, researchers and practitioners working in networking research.

Network coding promises to significantly impact the way communications networks are designed, operated, and understood. The first book to present a unified and intuitive overview of the theory, applications, challenges, and future directions of this emerging field, this is a must-have resource for those working in wireline or wireless networking. *Uses an engineering approach - explains the ideas and practical techniques *Covers mathematical underpinnings, practical algorithms, code selection, security, and network management *Discusses key topics of inter-session (non-multicast) network coding, lossy networks, lossless networks, and subgraph-selection algorithms Starting with basic concepts, models, and theory, then covering a core subset of results with full proofs, Ho and Lun provide an authoritative introduction to network coding that supplies both the background to support research and the practical considerations for designing coded networks. This is an essential resource for graduate students and researchers in electronic and computer engineering and for practitioners in the communications industry.

This book is an evolution from my book A First Course in Information Theory published in 2002 when network coding was still at its infancy. The last few years have witnessed the rapid development of network coding into a research ?eld of its own in information science. With its root in infor- tion theory, network coding has not only brought about a paradigm shift in network communications at large, but also had signi?cant in?uence on such speci?c research ?elds as coding theory, networking, switching, wireless c- munications,distributeddatastorage,cryptography,andoptimizationtheory. While new applications of network coding keep emerging, the fundamental - sults that lay the foundation of the subject are more or less mature. One of the main goals of this book therefore is to present these results in a unifying and coherent manner. While the previous book focused only on information theory for discrete random variables, the current book contains two new chapters on information theory for continuous random variables, namely the chapter on di?erential entropy and the chapter on continuous-valued channels. With these topics included, the book becomes more comprehensive and is more suitable to be used as a textbook for a course in an electrical engineering department.

This book focuses on how to apply network coding at different layers in wireless networks – including MAC, routing, and TCP – with special focus on cognitive radio networks. It discusses how to select parameters in network coding (e.g., coding field, number of packets involved, redundant information ration) in order to be suitable for the varying wireless environments. The author explores how to deploy network coding in MAC to improve network performance and examine joint network coding with opportunistic routing to improve the successful rate of routing. In regards to TCP and network coding, the author considers transport layer protocol working with network coding to overcome the transmission error rate, particularly with how to use the ACK feedback of TCP to enhance the efficiency of network coding. The book pertains to researchers and postgraduate students, especially whose interests are in opportunistic routing and TCP in cognitive radio networks.

Network coding, a relatively new area of research, has evolved from the theoretical level to become a tool used to optimize the performance of communication networks – wired, cellular, ad hoc, etc. The idea consists of mixing “packets” of data together when routing them from source to destination. Since network coding increases the network performance, it becomes a tool to enhance the existing protocols and algorithms in a network or for applications such as peer-to-peer and TCP. This book delivers an understanding of network coding and provides a set of studies showing the improvements in security, capacity and performance of fixed and mobile networks. This is increasingly topical as industry is increasingly becoming more reliant upon and applying network coding in multiple applications. Many cases where network coding is used in routing, physical layer, security, flooding, error correction, optimization and relaying are given – all of which are key areas of interest. Network Coding is the ideal resource for university students studying coding, and researchers and practitioners in sectors of all industries where digital communication and its application needs to be correctly understood and implemented. Contents 1. Network Coding: From Theory to Practice, Youghourta Benfattoum, Steven Martin and Khaldoun Al Agha. 2. Fountain Codes and Network Coding for WSNs, Anya Apavatjrut, Claire Goursaud, Katia Jaffrès-Runser and Jean-Marie Gorce. 3. Switched Code for Ad Hoc Networks: Optimizing the Diffusion by Using Network Coding, Nour Kadi and Khaldoun Al Agha. 4. Security by Network Coding, Katia Jaffrès-Runser and Cédric Lauradoux. 5. Security for Network Coding, Marine Minier, Yuanyuan Zhang and Wassim Znaïdi. 6. Random Network Coding and Matroids, Maximilien Gadouleau. 7. Joint Network-Channel Coding for the Semi-Orthogonal MARC: Theoretical Bounds and Practical Design, Atoosa Hatefi, Antoine O. Berthet and Raphael Visoz. 8. Robust Network Coding, Lana Iwaza, Marco Di Renzo and Michel Kieffer. 9. Flow Models and Optimization for Network Coding, Eric Gourdin and Jeremiah Edwards.

Network coding is an elegant and novel technique introduced at the turn of the millennium to improve network throughput and performance. It is expected to be a critical technology for networks of the future. This tutorial addresses the first most natural questions one would ask about this new technique: how network coding works and what are its benefits, how network codes are designed and how much it costs to deploy networks implementing such codes, and finally, whether there are methods to deal with cycles and delay that are present in all real networks. A companion issue deals primarily with applications of network coding.

Introduction -- Network coding Fundamentals -- Harnessing Network Coding in Wireless Systems -- Network Coding for Content Distribution and Multimedia Streaming in Peer-to-Peer Networks -- Network Coding in the Real World -- Network Coding and User Cooperation for Streaming and Download Services in LTE Networks -- CONCERTO: Experiences with a Real-World MANET System Based on Network Coding -- Secure Network Coding: Bounds and Algorithms for Secret and Reliable Communications -- Network Coding and Data Compression -- Scaling Laws with Network Coding -- Network Coding in Disruption Tolerant Networks.