This paper compares the end-to-end (E2E) fountain codes and random linear network coding (RLNC) for lossy multi-hop short-packet communications, under the constraint that the coding coefficient overhead imposed by RLNC recoding is non-negligible. The decoding failure probability (DFP) of RLNC is analyzed and computed as a function of the most relevant parameters. A DFP minimization problem is formulated and numerically solved from a cross-layer perspective. By comparing the codes using optimized parameters, the DFP of RLNC is shown to be higher than that of the E2E codes, which is due to the coefficient overhead. The results suggest that E2E fountain codes might be preferred for multi-hop short-packet communications.

中文翻译：

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关于多跳短包通信：重新编码还是端到端喷泉编码？

本文在 RLNC 重新编码所施加的编码系数开销不可忽略的约束下，比较了用于有损多跳短包通信的端到端 (E2E) 喷泉码和随机线性网络编码 (RLNC)。RLNC 的解码失败概率 (DFP) 被分析和计算为最相关参数的函数。从跨层的角度制定和数值求解 DFP 最小化问题。通过比较使用优化参数的代码，表明 RLNC 的 DFP 高于 E2E 代码的 DFP，这是由于系数开销。结果表明 E2E 喷泉码可能更适合多跳短数据包通信。