Improved Network Coding Algorithm Based On Minimum Cost Maximum Flow

Network coding was first introduced by Dr. Ahlswede et al. from information theory perspective in 2000. Network coding has absolutely cause the changes of the traditional information operation method in computer networks and it can enhance the capacity of the communication networks. Study on network coding involves the knowledge about information theory, computer communication networks, multicast technique, multiple user information theory and graph theory. Network coding can increase network capacity, improve the robustness and security, it can be widely applied in ad-hoc network, P2P systems, wireless network, the distributed file store and network security. As a result, the study on network coding is of great significance.The paper introduces the basic theory and development status of network coding, concludes that the key reason of network coding improving the performance of multicast communication is that some links were shared by different paths in the multicast network. Reducing the number of key links at the same time of constructing transmission paths is an effective way to minimize the additional cost of network coding. Following this idea, presents an improved network coding algorithm whose feasibility is proved at the same time. This new improved network coding algorithm can effectively reduce the cost of network coding and data transmission, and it was based on the minimum cost maximum flow algorithm and complied with max-flow min-cut theorem.