A New Approach to Random Access: Reliable Communication and Reliable Collision Detection

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel coding method for packet-based random access communication that ensures reliable data transmission and collision detection without requiring joint rate determination, supported by information theoretic analysis.

Contribution

It proposes a new channel coding approach tailored for bursty and random access traffic, with an achievable rate region matching Shannon limits without convexification.

Findings

Achievable rate region equals Shannon information rate region.

Supports reliable packet recovery within the region.

Supports reliable collision detection outside the region.

Abstract

This paper applies Information Theoretic analysis to packet-based random multiple access communication systems. A new channel coding approach is proposed for coding within each data packet with built-in support for bursty traffic properties, such as message underflow, and for random access properties, such as packet collision detection. The coding approach does not require joint communication rate determination either among the transmitters or between the transmitters and the receiver. Its performance limitation is characterized by an achievable region defined in terms of communication rates, such that reliable packet recovery is supported for all rates inside the region and reliable collision detection is supported for all rates outside the region. For random access communication over a discrete-time memoryless channel, it is shown that the achievable rate region of the introduced coding approach equals the Shannon information rate region without a convex hull operation. Further connections between the achievable rate region and the Shannon information rate region are developed and explained.