In this work, I present a non-binary Decode-and-Forward Network Coded (DFNC) protocol over GF(2q) for reliable communication in multi-user... Show moreIn this work, I present a non-binary Decode-and-Forward Network Coded (DFNC) protocol over GF(2q) for reliable communication in multi-user cooperative wireless networks. There are two time phases in DFNC protocol: each user transmits its own data in the first time phase and serves as a relay in the second time phase to transmit the network coded information combining its own and others. In particular, a non-binary coding matrix construction method is proposed so as to reduce the transmission overhead and to provide independence for decoding. Moreover, we design a creative joint decoding algorithm: Credit-based Updating Algorithm (CUA), which works on symbol-level coupling network-decoding and channel-decoding together. By fully exploiting the spatial diversity and redundancy residing in network coding, CUA improves the solvability of decoding set at the destination, and therefore achieves better performance than traditional decoding algorithms, such as Gaussian Elimination. From the analysis and simulation results, we demonstrate that the proposed protocol achieves higher diversity order and outperforms other traditional transmission schemes in terms of Symbol Error Rate (SER). M.S. in Computer Engineering, May 2011 Show less
