ALOHA based wireless

random access technique

ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Multiple Access Protocols

Many algorithms exist for allocation of
Multiple Access Channel. To begin
with let us investigate representative
algorithms:
Pure ALOHA
Slotted ALOHA
Reservation ALOHA

ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Pure ALOHA
In 1970s, Norman Abramson and his
team at University of Hawaii devised
the algorithm
The basic idea used in the algorithm is
applicable to any system in which
uncoordinated users are competing for
the use of single shared channel
The algorithm is referred to as Random
Multiple Access Protocol or Pure ALOHA
ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Random Multiple Access Protocol

Users transmit whenever they have
data to be sent
There will be collisions and the colliding
frames are destroyed
However, due to the broadcasting
nature of the channel, a sender can
always find out whether or not its
frame was destroyed by listening to the
channel, the same way other users do
ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Random Multiple Access Protocol

With a LAN, the feedback is immediate
However, with a satellite, there is a delay of
270 ms, before the sender knows if the
transmission was successful
If the frame was destroyed, the sender just
waits a random amount of time and sends it
again
This kind of system where users share a
common channel resource is referred to as
Contention System
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unication

Pure ALOHA System

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unication

Pure ALOHA System

Frames have the same length
Whenever two frames try to occupy
the channel at the same time, there
will be collision and both fames are
garbled
Question: Can this system work? If
yes, What is the efficiency or
throughput of the system?
ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Formal Description of the Algorithm

Transmission Mode: Users transmit at any
time they desire, encoding their transmission
with an error detection code
Listening Mode: After a message
transmission, the user listens for the
acknowledgement (ACK) from the receiver.
Transmissions from different users will
sometimes overlap in time, causing errors in
the data in each of the colliding partners.
The user then receives a negative
acknowledgement (NAK)
ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Formal Description of the Algorithm

Retransmission Mode: When NAK is
received, the messages are simply
retransmitted. Colliding users retransmit
after a random amount of delay
Timeout Mode: If, after a transmission, the
user does not receive either an ACK or NAK
within a specified time, the user
retransmits the message

ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Slotted ALOHA
By introducing a small amount of coordination
among users, the performance of the pure
ALOHA can be improved
Such a scheme is referred to as S-ALOHA or
Slotted-ALOHA system
As with pure ALOHA system, in S-ALOHA the
packet size is constant
Packets are required to be sent in the slot
time between synchronization pulses and can
be started only at the beginning of the time
slot.
ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Slotted ALOHA
This simple change reduces the rate
of collisions by half, since only
packets transmitted in the same slot
can interfere with one another.
Normalized throughput of S-ALOHA
system is thus given by:

Ge

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Slotted ALOHA Operation

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unication

Slotted ALOHA Throughput

The maximum value of throughput =
1/e=0.37
This maximum occurs at G =1.0
In S-ALOHA 37% of the Channel
Resource can be utilized
There exists tradeoff between
Channel utilization and Coordination

ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Reservation ALOHA
(R-ALOHA)
Significant improvement in performance can be
achieved over ALOHA system by using Reservations
The R-ALOHA system has two basic modes:
Unreserved Mode (Quiescent State)
1. A time frame is established and divided into small
reservation subslots
2. Users use these subslots to reserve message slots
3. After requesting a reservation, the user listens for
an acknowledgement and a slot assignment

ECE431/Wireless comm
unication

Reservation ALOHA
(R-ALOHA)
Reserved Mode:
1. The time frame is divided into M+1
slots whenever a reservation is made
2. The first M slots are used for
message transmission
3. The last is subdivided into subslots
to be used for reservations
4. Users send message packets only in
their assigned portions of the M slots
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5 Slots, 6 Subslots R-ALOHA

System

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R-ALOHA System
In the quiescent state, with no reservations,
time is partitioned into short subslots for
making reservations
Once reservation is made, the system is
configured so that 5 message slots followed
by 6 reservation subslots becomes the
timing format
In the Figure the station seeks to reserve
three message slots
The reservation acknowledgement advises
the station where to locate its data packets.
ECE431/Wireless comm
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R-ALOHA System
Since the control is distributed, all
stations receive the downlink
transmission and are aware of the
reservation format
The acknowledgement need not
disclose any more than the location of
the first slot to use.
When there are no reservations taking
place, the system reverts back to its
quiescent mode
ECE431/Wireless comm
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