Network Coding in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Comprehensive Survey

Network coding (NC) is a technique used for effective and secure communication by improving the network capacity, throughput, efficiency, and robustness. In NC, data packets are encoded by intermediate nodes and are then decoded at the destination nodes. NC has been successfully applied in a variety of networks including relay networks, peer-to-peer networks, wireless networks, cognitive radio networks, and wireless sensor networks. Cognitive radio network (CRN) is an emerging field which exploits the utilization of unused spectrum or white spaces, effectively and efficiently. In CRNs, NC schemes are also applied to maximize the spectrum utilization, as well as to maintain the effective and secure transmission of data packets over the network. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of NC schemes in cognitive radio networks, highlighting the motivations for and the applications of NC in CRNs. We provide typical case studies of NC schemes in CRNs, as well as the taxonomy of NC schemes in CRNs. Finally, we present open issues, challenges, and future research directions related with NC in cognitive radio networks.

I. Introduction

The distribution of information or data packets from a source node to multiple destination nodes over communication networks is called multicasting, an area that has been receiving considerable attention for more than 10 years [1]. In multicasting, the basic problem faced by researchers is the effective scheduling of data streams. A novel solution proposed for this problem is Network Coding (NC), in which information is encoded at the node level and then spread over the network from a source node to a destination node, thereby improving the scheduling of data streams [1].