Abstract: The invention relates to a method of transmitting a data unit over a plurality of transmission paths of a wireless communication system that is adapted to minimize bandwidth usage and energy consumption while maintaining transmission robustness. A method of transmitting K data blocks of a data unit comprises the steps of encoding the data unit into an encoded data unit comprising N encoded blocks, with N>K, using an error correction code having a minimum distance d; and transmitting the N blocks of the encoded data unit over a set of NP transmission paths, where NP?2, wherein at least N?d+1 different encoded blocks are transmitted over at least one subset of NP?M transmission paths, where M is representative of the number of transmission paths that can be blocked without preventing the receiver from recovering the K data blocks of the data unit.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of reconstructing pixel values of a video frame for concealing corrupted pixel values. The method comprising receiving, by a receiving unit, of a signal from a communication channel and delivering by the receiving unit of video packets comprising pixel values possibly corrupted with errors; associating confidence levels with pixel values comprised in the video packets as delivered by the receiving unit; and reconstructing pixel values usable for display from the received pixel values, wherein a reconstructed value for a given pixel is obtained from the received values of a set of pixels, including the given pixel, weighted by their associated confidence levels. The invention allows for better reconstruction of corrupted pixel values and reduces the perceived distortion when displaying the video frame.

Abstract: A method of configuring a beam forming antenna in a communication network that comprises a first node where the beam forming antenna is located, second nodes and at least one destination node, communication links being established between said first node and said at least one destination node through at least some of said second nodes. The method comprises: emitting a signal by the beam forming antenna configured with a first set of antenna parameters; the same signal being sent from the first node to several second nodes; obtaining, for a plurality of communication links through which the signal has been sent, at least one physical magnitude representing the distortion caused by each communication link to the signal; aggregating said physical magnitudes of said plurality of communication links; and obtaining a second set of antenna parameters for configuring the beam forming antenna in accordance with said aggregated physical magnitudes.

Abstract: A method is provided for configuring an overall encoding scheme comprising a first encoding for generating first encoded packets from source packets and a second encoding for generating second encoded packets by combination of first encoded packets according to a combination scheme applied by predetermined nodes of the network. The method obtains a number N of defective paths among paths used to transmit the first and second encoded packets to at least one destination node, a path being defective if an associated quality of transmission is below a predetermined threshold. A combination scheme is selected from among at least two possible predetermined combination schemes for which a number of encoded second packets is greater than or equal to N.

Abstract: A method is proposed for determining an erasures vector associated with a data block to be decoded built out of received copies, and using levels of reliability of transmission associated with symbols contained in different copies of a same block of received pieces of data. Such a method advantageously makes reduces the error rate at output of a decoder by minimizing the operations to be performed to determine the erasures vector, marking the erasures and preventing the generation of an excessively large number of erasures (even when the transmission of certain received copies is unreliable) to have a number of erasures that does not exceed the correction capacity of the decoder.

Abstract: A method is proposed for decoding a plurality of data packets received through a meshed communications network for the retrieval of source packets transmitted by one or more source nodes, the meshed communications network comprising relay nodes generating combined packets, each combined packet consisting of a linear combination of source packets. During the decoding by a destination node, this method consists in performing two decoding operations of which the first is a decoding by group of packets and the second is a decoding that takes account of pieces of likelihood information resulting from the first decoding. The fact of first of all carrying out a decoding with groups of packets makes it possible to exploit the repetitions (or redundancies) of packets in a meshed network to optimize the bit error rate during the decoding of source data transmitted on the communications network.

Abstract: One embodiment of the invention pertains to a method for allocating bandwidth in a communications network, characterized in that it comprises steps for: a) determining a subset of elementary networks from a set of possible elementary networks in a communications network, the elementary networks of the subset each being capable of simultaneously implementing a elementary network encoding scheme; b) determining at least one critical destination node in the communications network; c) allocating at least one bandwidth portion released by an application of the elementary network encoding scheme in at least one elementary network of the subset, for a transmission of at least one additional data unit to the at least one critical destination node.

Abstract: A method for managing allocation of paths for transmission, in packets of symbols, of at least a first data content, each content being transmitted from a source node up to a destination node in a meshed communications network comprising a plurality of nodes, each destination node receiving a plurality of copies of a same packet of symbols of the content transmitted to said destination node by a source node, each copy being received by the destination node via a distinct transmission path directly from the source node or via at least one relay node of the meshed communications network, the packets being encoded with an error correction code enabling decoding by erasure of packets symbols.