Enhance Broadcasting Throughput by Associating Network Coding with UAVs Relays Deployment in Emergency Communications

During emergency scenarios, network access may be disrupted due to damaged Base Stations (BSs), and deploying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as communication relays is common in rescue scenarios due to their convenience in ensuring network access. In such situations, the dissemination of rescue-related information messages is crucial, and broadcast messages are often prioritized. Thus, ensuring high broadcast throughput while guaranteeing accessibility for all victims and rescue teams is a significant challenge. Moreover, the broadcast burden is further aggravated by multiple rescue teams broadcasting messages simultaneously. To address this issue, Network Coding Based Cooperative (NCBC) broadcast scheme is a promising approach for enhancing broadcast throughput in emergency scenarios. By employing the NCBC broadcast scheme, we show that the broadcast throughput can be significantly improved. We propose a heuristic algorithm for generating optimal deployment of UAVs using network coding strategy and evaluate the broadcast throughput quantitatively. Simulation results show that our approach can ensure user accessibility and yield at least 26.69% throughput improvement compared to the traditional copy-and-forward relay protocol in a typical scenario.