Assisted-Multicast Scheduling in Wireless Cognitive Mesh Networks

In this work, we consider the multicast problem in a single cell in a cognitive mesh network. Due to the potential heterogeneity in channel availability among the members of a multicast group(s), the total multicast time could be longer due to transmitting the multicast data over multiple channels. We propose, in this work, an assisted multicast strategy with the objective of minimizing the total multicast time. This assistance is composed of two main activities, first, allowing the receivers in a multicast group to forward the data they have received to other members of the multicast group(s), and second, allowing the transmission of coded (bitwise XORed) packets so that receivers belonging to different multicast groups can decode and extract their data concurrently. We show, in this paper, that the proposed assistance paradigm achieves a considerable reduction in the total multicast time, which in turn increases the system throughput.