  As a subfield of network coding, physical-layer network coding (PNC) can
effectively enhance the throughput of wireless networks by mapping superimposed
signals at receiver to other forms of user messages. Over the past twenty
years, PNC has received significant research attention and has been widely
studied in various communication scenarios, e.g., two-way relay communications
(TWRC), nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in 5G networks, random access
networks, etc. To ensure network reliability, channel-coded PNC is proposed and
related communication techniques are investigated, such as the design of
channel code, low-complexity decoding, and cross-layer design. In this article,
we briefly review the variants of channel-coded PNC wireless communications
with the aim of inspiring future research activities in this area. We also put
forth open research problems along with a few selected research directions
under PNC-aided frameworks.
