Multiple Access Techniques

MOBILE COMMUNICATION

Septa Jurdy Mulya | Electronic Information | 01/11/2019

Multiple Access Techniques

Multiple access schemes are used to allow many users, stationary or mobile, to share
simultaneously a finite amount of wireless frequency spectrum. The sharing of
spectrum is required to achieve a high capacity by simultaneously allocating the
available bandwidth or available amount of channels to multiple users. How this must
be done without degradation in the performance of the wireless networks, we will
discuss below.

1.1. Introduction to Multiple Access

Sharing of sources between many users can be done by use different kinds of
resources: a single resource is to use a control channel; many resources are the voice
or digital channels. The first kind of channels we call signaling channels, the second
kind is called traffic channels, because they are used to carry user information in form
of voice or data.
If there are two terminals at the ends of wireless communication link, we can
differentiate the forward link or downlink from the base station (radio port) and user
(stationary or mobile) and reverse link or uplink from user to base station. If this
connection is bi-directional, we call it full-duplex links. Duplexing can be done using
frequency or time domain technique.

Duplex channel:

Frequency division duplexing (FDD) provides two distinct bands of frequencies for
base station and every user connected (see top scheme in Fig. 11.1), that is, for the
forward and reverse links.
Time division duplexing (TDD) uses different time instead of frequency to serve both
a forward and reverse channels (see bottom scheme in Fig. 11.1).

Reverse Forward
Channel channel
Frequency
Frequency split

Reverse Forward
Channel channel
time
Time split

Fig. 11.1
Properties:
FDD can be performed by simultaneous (time t=const) transmission and
reception of information and by careful separation between frequencies for downlink
and uplink.
TDD can be performed by time latency due to separate transmitting/receiving
of information. If the time split between the uplink and downlink time slot is small,
then the transmission and reception of data appears simultaneous to the user. TDD
allows communication on a single channel (frequency f=const).

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 So, from the beginning, we see several trade-offs between FDD and TDD approaches.
There are three major access techniques to share the available bandwidth in
the wireless communication networks:
- Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA);
- Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA);
- Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA).
These techniques can be grouped as narrowband and wideband systems.

Narrowband systems:
In such systems the transmission bandwidth of each single channel is smaller
than its expected coherence bandwidth. This allows us to divide the available radio
spectrum into a large number of narrowband channels. Narrowband channels are
usually operated using FDD. If so, the system called FDMA/FDD is used, where
subscriber is assigned a particular channel. No sharing with other users.
In narrowband TDMA systems (i.e., sharing using TDMA), there are two options to
serve users: there are a large number of channels allocated using FDD or TDD. Such
system are called TDMA/FDD or TDMA/TDD.

Wideband systems:
In such systems the transmission bandwidth of each single channel is much
larger than its expected coherence bandwidth. Here, as we discuss above in Lecture 9,
multipath fading is not greatly affect the received signal within a wideband channel,
and frequency selective fading occurs in only a small fraction of the signal bandwidth.
In such a system, the user transmits information in a large part of the radio spectrum.
The most techniques are wideband TDMA and CDMA, which can use separately
either FDD and TDD or CDD (code division duplexing).
In addition, some other access schemes are usually used. They are:
- Packet Radio (PR).
- Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA).
Classification of Multiple Accesses and Their Protocols is shown in Fig. 11.2.

Multiple Access Protocols

Connectionless Contention
(scheduling) (Random Access)

CDMA

Fixed Demand Repeated Random

Assigned Assigned Pure Hybrid
Random Access with
CDMA CDMA
DS, FH, TH DS/FH Access reservation
TDMA/CDMA
etc.
FDMA Polling
TDMA Token passing ALOHA Implicit
s-ALOHA Explicit
etc.

Fig. 11.2

Let us consider them separately.

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1.2. Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)

Main principle of FDMA system is to assign individual channels to individual users,

As is clear seen from Fig. 11.3, each user is allocated a unique frequency band or
channel. These channels are assigned on demand to users who request service.

code

1
2

N
frequency
C

C
h

n
n

n
n
a

e
l

Chan
nel
.......

Time

Fig. 11.3

The features of FDMA are as follows:

one phone circuit at a time per carrier, since channels are narrow (30 kHz);
at idle states, a channel cannot be used by other users; after channel
assignment a continuous transmission occurs;
• lower framing overheads;
usually is narrowband;
large symbol time compared to the average delay spread caused
by multipath fading;
• low inter-symbol-interference (ISI);
cost of cell systems is higher than TDMA;
use duplexers in user unit (mobile or not);
typical problem is spurious frequencies at BS due to nonlinear filters

The first U.S. analog cellular system, the Advanced Mobile Phone Systems (AMPS),
is based on FDMA/FDD giving each user a unique channel and sending voice
information in two links, uplink and downlink, which are frequency duplexed with a
45 MHz split. In AMPS, the analog narrowband frequency modulation is used to
modulate a radio frequency (RF) carrier.

Spectral Efficiency:

Spectral efficiency of FDMA characterizes an efficient use of frequency spectrum.

The overall efficiency of a FDMA system can be evaluated by knowledge of the
modulation efficiency and multiple access spectral efficiency separately.
Modulation Efficiency. Spectral efficiency of modulation can be determined
by the following formula:

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 N
ηm 
BS cA
where Nc is the total number of channels in the FDMA system; BS is the bandwidth of
the system; A is the total area of service. So, ηm has dimension of
channels/MHz/km 2 . If we now will introduce M as the total number of cells in area of
service, Ac  2.6Rcell2 is the area covered by one cell as hexagon in km 2 , Bc is a
bandwidth of the channel, and N as the reuse factor of the cellular network, then M/N
gives us the number of clusters in the served area and BS / Bc gives the number of
channels in the cluster. Finally we can rewrite the above formula as

(BS / Bc ) (M / N ) 1
ηm  
BS Ac M Bc A c N
1
 2.6B N R2
c cell

There is other definition of spectral efficiency of modulation through the knowledge

of traffic. In this case ηm is measured in Erlangs/MHz/ km 2 and defined

η  (Total _ Traffic _ Carried _ By _ System)

m
BS A
If we now introduce well-known number of channels in the cell, C  BS /(Bc N ) , then

η  (Total _ Traffic _ Carried _ By _ C _ Channels)

m
BS Ac
By introducing the trunking efficiency factor, ηt , as a function of the blocking
probability (GOS) and BS / Bc , we have other presentation of spectral efficiency of
modulation:

η  ηt BS /(Bc N )  ηt
m
BS Ac BS Ac N

Spectral Efficiency of the FD Multiple Access. Can be defined by knowledge

of total number of channels in the FDMA system, Nc , bandwidth of the
system BS and a channel Bc :
Bc Nc
ηFDMA 
BS

Overall Efficiency of FDMA. Finally, the overall spectral efficiency of the

FDMA system equals:

ηη η
m FDMA

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Number of Channels:

The number of channels that can be simultaneously supported in a FDMA system is:

B − 2B
N  t guard

channelsBch

where Bt is the total spectrum of the system, Bquard is the quard band at the edge of the
allocated spectrum, and Bc is the channel bandwidth.

1.3. Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)

TDMA allows transmission of larger information rates than in an FDMA system. The
carrier (radio frequency) is divided to N timeslots (simply, slots) and can be shared by
N terminals (see Fig. 11.4), each of which uses a particular slot different from slots
used by the other terminals.

code
Channel N
t
s
lo
es
im
t

Channel 2
Channel 1

frequency

Time

Fig. 11.4

For forward and reverse channels in TDMA/TDD system, there are different time
slots used: half slots in frame are for the uplink and half slots are for the downlink. In
TDMA/FDD system is the same procedure, but the carrier frequencies would be
different for the forward and reverse channels. So, single carrier frequency serves
multiples users (see Fig.11.4).
The features of TDMA include the following:

- TDMA shares a single carrier frequency with several users, where each user
makes use of non-overlapping time slot. The number of slots in the frame depends on
several factors, such as modulation technique, available bandwidth etc.

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 - The TDMA transmission is discontinuous, that is, digital data is transmitted
in a buffer-and-burst method. For example, the mobile transmits on slot 1, waits
during slot 2, and receives on slot 3, waits again during slot 4, and transmits again on
slot 1. As a consequence of this type of transmission, the gross channel rate is not
equal to the communication rate (i.e., the channel throughput seen by the user). The
channel throughput must be faster by a factor of at least the number of slots in a frame.
- Because of discontinuous transmission in TDMA, the handoff process is
simpler for a subscriber unit, since it is able to listen for other base station during idle
time slots. So, the enhanced link control can be provided by mobile assisted handoff
(MAHO) and can be implemented by the system.
- TDMA uses different time slots for transmission and reception and duplexers
are not required.
- Adaptive equalization is required due to high-rate transmission in TDMA
compared to FDMA.
- In TDMA frame the preamble contains the address and synchronization
information that both the base station and the subscriber use to identify each other.
- Guard times are utilized to allow synchronization of the receivers between
different slots and frames (see Fig. 11.5). The guard times should be minimized and
the spectrum broadens.
- High synchronization accuracy is required.
- TDMA has advantage in that it is possible to allocate different time slots per
frame to different users (priority).

Preamble Information message Trail bits

slot 1 slot 2 slot 3 ...... slot N

Trail bits Sync. bits Information Data Guard bits

Fig. 11.5

Efficiency of TDMA:

Multiple Access Efficiency. Efficiency of TDMA characterizes an efficient use of time

slots/frames in the system. It is defined by the following expression:

T
η  s N
TDMA T s
f

where Ts is a time of slot duration, Tf is the time of frame duration, and N s is the
number of slots per frame.

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 Overall Efficiency of TDMA. For TDMA network the overall efficiency, as
above for FDMA system, equals:
ηη η
m TDMA

where ηm can be defined either by knowledge of trunking efficiency factor or by

knowledge of cell area (or radius of cell) and cell splitting strategy (reuse factor N).
Frame Efficiency. It is a measure of the percentage of transmission data rate
that contains information, that is, it is a percentage of bits per frame, which contain
transmission data with respect to overhead data. Efficiency of frame is defined as:

η
100%
b

 1 −
OH

f b

T
Here the number of overhead bits per frame is:

bOH  Nr br  Nt bp  (Nt  Nr )bg

where Nr is the number of reference bursts per frame, br is the number of overhead
bits per reference burst, Nt is the number of traffic bursts per frame, bp is the number
of overhead bits per preamble in each slot, and bg is the number of equivalent bits in
each guard time interval. The total number of bits per frame, bT , is

bT  Tf R

where Tf is the frame duration (see Fig. 11.5), and R is the channel bit rate.
Capacity (Throuput) of TDMA. The capacity of TDMA system can be defined
by the following formula:
B
ηb  S
NU 
ν f Rt N

where NU is the number of channels (users) per cell; ηb is the bandwidth efficiency
factor;  is the bit efficiency (equals 2 for QPSK, and 1.354 for GMSK, as used in
GSM systems); ν f is a voice activity factor (equal 1 for TDMA); BS is a one-way
bandwidth of a system; Rt  R  R' (data bit rate plus overhead); N is a reuse factor.

Number of Channels:

It is the number of TDMA channel slots, which can be found by multiplying the
number of TDMA slots per channel by a number of channels available, i.e.,

m(B − 2B )
N tot guard

B
ch

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where m is the maximum number of TDMA users supported on each radio channel.
Example of the frame architecture of the GSM/TDMA system (see Fig. 11.6):

Fig. 11.6

1.4. Code Division Multiple Access

It is a part of Spread Spectrum Multiple Access (SSMA), a technique of which we

have discussed in previous lecture 9.

Principal methods of SSMA are:

- Frequency Hopping Multiple Access (FH-MA), which, as we know, can be

divided on fast FHMA and slow FHMA.

- Direct Sequence Multiple Access (DS-MA), which is usually called Code

Division Multiple Access (CDMA).

In CDMA, each user obtained its unique code (see Fig. 11.7) due to a fact that its
narrowband message signal is multiplied by a wideband spreading signal, which
generated by noise-like generator to give an unique PN code to each user (all details
we discussed in Lecture 9).

Code

Channel 1
Channel 2
Channel 3

Frequency

Channel N

Time

Fig. 11.7

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As we remember, using such a modulation technique as spread spectrum, we can
resolve some very important problems in wireless communication such as:
- near-far problem;
- power control;
- data rate (very high in CDMA);
- multiplexing;
- use of FDD or TDD;
- soft capacity limit;
- soft handover.

1.5. Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA)

The main task of SDMA is to control of radiated energy for each user by use so-called
the spot-beam antenna (see Fig. 11.8).

Lecturer at the
end of the final
exam

Student late for

the final exam Graduate of Comm.
Systems. Eng.

Fig. 11.8

The main principle of SDMA is that different areas use the same frequency (TDMA,
CDMA).
Present problems connected with the problems of the control of reverse
channel due to limitations in power control. Future problems are to assemble
directional antennas for mobile and base stations