Multi-antenna and receiver slotted ALOHA packet radio systems with capture
Creators: name: Lau, Chiew Tong
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: The problem of data transmission in a packet radio system with one central base station and a number of mobile/stationary terminals is addressed. More specifically, the effects of possible collisions between packets on the inbound channel are investigated. Schemes which can be used to improve the performance are studied. The use of capture to improve the performance of slotted ALOHA systems is discussed. For a power group division scheme proposed by Metzner in which a capture effect is artificially induced, it is shown that in the two power group case, the higher power packet needs only be able to tolerate interference from up to three lower power packets in order to realize most of the achievable improvement of the infinite capture model. The evaluation of the performance for more than two power groups is also considered. A packet radio system in which a capture effect exists due to the fact that mobiles will generally be at different distances from the base station is also investigated. A number of different capture and spatial distribution models are discussed. Methods for evaluating the probability [formula omitted] of successful reception when there are [formula omitted] contending transmitters are examined. It is shown that a generalized capture model can be used to estimate [formula omitted] for an example system which uses non-coherent frequency shift keying modulation. This model can be applied to other systems as well. In most practical systems, the mobiles cannot get arbitrarily close to the base station. The effects of this constraint on [formula omitted] is examined. The dependence of the capture probability for a test mobile on its distance from the base station is also analyzed. The use of multiple directional antennas and receivers in a slotted ALOHA system in which the signals from the different transmitters are received with more or less the same powers is analyzed. It is shown that the performance of the system can be substantially improved by using directional antennas and multiple receivers. Results indicate that fewer than five antennas per receiver are required in order to achieve most of the achievable performance. A finite population Markov model is used to evaluate the performance of a multi-antenna and receiver slotted ALOHA system in a mobile radio environment in which the signal power levels from different mobiles are no longer equal. The effects of three different antenna patterns, background noise and Rayleigh fading are studied. Here again, numerical results indicate that substantial gains are possible with the use of several antennas and receivers. It is also found that the dynamic behaviour of the system is improved. The selection of the antennas to be connected to the receivers becomes an issue if the number of receivers at the base station is less than the number of antennas . Four antenna selection schemes are compared for three different channel models, assuming an ideal antenna pattern. It is found that the scheme which selects the antennas with the largest received signal powers is nearly optimum. The effects of using a more practical non-ideal antenna pattern are also discussed.