  Fast data synchronization in wireless ad hoc networks is a challenging and
critical problem. It is fundamental for efficient information fusion, control
and decision in distributed systems. Previously, distributed data
synchronization was mainly studied in the latency-tolerant distributed
databases, or assuming the general model of wireless ad hoc networks. In this
paper, we propose a pair of linear network coding (NC) and all-to-all broadcast
based fast data synchronization algorithms for wireless ad hoc networks whose
topology is under operator's control. We consider both data block selection and
transmitting node selection for exploiting the benefits of NC. Instead of using
the store-and-forward protocol as in the conventional uncoded approach, a
compute-and-forward protocol is used in our scheme, which improves the
transmission efficiency. The performance of the proposed algorithms is studied
under different values of network size, network connection degree, and per-hop
packet error rate. Simulation results demonstrate that our algorithms
significantly reduce the times slots used for data synchronization compared
with the baseline that does not use NC.
