Section: New Results

Coding for efficient Network Communications Research Group (NWCRG)

Participants : Vincent Roca, Belkacem Teibi.

In the context of the "Coding for efficient Network Communications IRTF Research Group (NWCRG) » (https://datatracker.ietf.org/rg/nwcrg/), several activities have been carried out. First of all, a recommended terminology for Network Coding concepts and constructs has been elaborated. It provides a comprehensive set of terms in order to avoid ambiguities in future Network Coding IRTF and IETF documents.

Then, in order to facilitate the use of Sliding Window Codes, such as RLC (see the above FEC Scheme) and RLNC codes (i.e., the well known codes for network coding applications, with potential re-encoding within the network), a work started that introduces a generic Application Programming Interface (API) for window-based FEC codes. This API is meant to be usable by any sliding window FEC code, independently of the FEC Scheme or network coding protocol that may rely on it. This API defines the core procedures and functions meant to control the codec (i.e., implementation of the FEC code), but leaves out all upper layer aspects (e.g., signalling) that are the responsibility of the application making use of the codec. A goal of this document is to pave the way for a future open-source implementation of such codes.

Finally, we started to work on the motivation and requirements for the use of Network Level Packet Erasure Coding to improve the performance of the QUIC protocol that is proposed a new transport protocol. The goal at this level is not specify a specific code but to list the salient features that a code should have in order to deal with know loss patterns on QUIC paths.