Network Coding for Multicast Communications over Satellite Networks

Random packet errors and erasures are common in satellite communications. These types of packet losses could become significant in mobile satellite scenarios like satellite-based aeronautical communications where mobility at very high speeds is a routine. The current adaptive coding and modulation (ACM) schemes used in new satellite systems like the DVB-RCS2 might offer some solutions to the problems posed by random packet errors but very little or no solution to the problems of packet erasures where packets are completely lost in transmission. The use of the current ACM schemes to combat packet losses in a high random packet errors and erasures environment like the satellite-based aeronautical communications will result in very low throughput. Network coding (NC) has proved to significantly improve throughput and thus saves bandwidth resources in such an environment. This paper focuses on establishing how in random linear network coding (RLNC) the satellite bandwidth utilization is affected by changing values of the generation size, rate of packet loss and number of receivers in a satellite-based aeronautical reliable IP multicast communication. From the simulation results, it shows that the bandwidth utilization generally increases with increasing generation size, rate of packet loss and number of receivers.