Hindawi journals 2010 - Special Issues of Hindawi journals- Physical Layer Network Coding for Wireless Cooperative Networks

Cooperative communication is an overwhelming research topic in wireless networks. The notion of cooperative communication is to enable transmit and receive cooperation at user level by exploiting the broadcast nature of wireless radio waves so that the overall system performance including power efficiency and communication reliability can be improved. However, due to the half-duplex constraint in practical systems, cooperative communication suffers from loss in spectral efficiency. Network coding has recently demonstrated significant potential for improving network throughput. Its principle is to allow an intermediate network node to mix the data received from multiple links for subsequent transmission. Applying the principle of network coding to wireless cooperative networks for spectral efficiency improvement has recently received tremendous attention from the research community. Physical-layer network coding (PLNC) is now known as a set of signal processing techniques combining channel coding, signal detection, and network coding in various relay-based communication scenarios, such as two-way communication, multiple access, multicasting, and broadcasting. To better exploit this new technique and promote its applications, many technical issues remain to be studied, varying from fundamental performance limits to practical implementation aspects. The aim of this special issue is to consolidate the latest research advances in physical-layer network coding in wireless cooperative networks. We are seeking new and original contributions addressing various aspects of PLNC. Topics of interest include, but not limited to:

Fundamental limits of relay channels with PLNC
Protocol design and analysis for PLNC
Cross-layer design for systems with PLNC
Joint channel coding, modulation, and PLNC
PLNC with Turbo/LDPC codes
PLNC with fountain codes
Channel estimation and synchronization of PLNC
Scheduling and resource allocation with PLNC
PLNC with MIMO and OFDM
PLNC in cooperative and cognitive networks
Implementation aspects of PLNC
Random network coding
Other issues related to PLNC
Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/wcn/guidelines.htm.... Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable:

Manuscript Due January 1, 2010
First Round of Reviews April 1, 2010
Publication Date July 1, 2010
Lead Guest Editor

Wen Chen, Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Minhang, Shanghai, China
Guest Editors

Xiaodai Dong, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Victoria, BC, Canada
Pingyi Fan, Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Christoph Hausl, Institute for Communications Engineering, Technische Universität München, Germany
Tiffany Jing Li, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA
Petar Popovski, Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Niels Jernes Vej 12, 5-208 9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Meixia Tao, Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Minhang, Shanghai, China