Networks with multiple source-destination pairs, involving possibly multicast, and where there are multiple nodes that can serve as potential relay nodes, are considered. A multisource, multirelay coding scheme is developed. In this scheme, each source's information is sent to its destination nodes via a multirelay route, with the multiple multirelay routes operating concurrently even when they intersect with each other, in the same spirit as code-division multiple access (CDMA). It is found that in the generalization to multiple sources, backward decoding achieves higher rates than sliding-window decoding. The routing structure where a joint backward decoding can be performed is characterized. The achievable rate region is found to combine aspects of both multiple relay and multiple access. Potential applications of this coding scheme to sensor networks are discussed. In particular, the exact capacity for the data downloading problem in sensor networks, where there are multiple sensor sources and one sink or collector node, is established for certain geometries when there is phase fading that is unknown to the transmitter. 2007 IEEE.
