Robust network coding in the presence of link failure using a multicast rate-diversity trade off

We introduce a centralized joint network-channel coding scheme for maximized throughput and increased robustness against link failure in a communication network. We introduce RNC1(h,k) to multicast k independent data in a directed and acyclic network with capacity h, k <= h. The redundancy through path diversity increases the resistance of the network against link failure. An improved version of RNC1, RNC2(h,k), is introduced to guarantee the rate k for h-k flow failures. The proposed schemes exploit the network structure for code design, which results in a manageable design complexity.