Massive Multiple Access Based on Superposition Raptor Codes for M2M Communications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel massive access scheme for dense M2M networks using superposition Raptor codes, significantly reducing delay and signaling overhead while supporting many devices with small messages.

Contribution

It proposes a new random access strategy combining superposition Raptor codes with preamble detection, enabling efficient support for large M2M device populations.

Findings

Supports a high number of MTC devices with limited resources

Reduces access delay and signaling overhead

Effective for small message sizes

Abstract

Machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless systems aim to provide ubiquitous connectivity between machine type communication (MTC) devices without any human intervention. Given the exponential growth of MTC traffic, it is of utmost importance to ensure that future wireless standards are capable of handling this traffic. In this paper, we focus on the design of a very efficient massive access strategy for highly dense cellular networks with M2M communications. Several MTC devices are allowed to simultaneously transmit at the same resource block by incorporating Raptor codes and superposition modulation. This significantly reduces the access delay and improves the achievable system throughput. A simple yet efficient random access strategy is proposed to only detect the selected preambles and the number of devices which have chosen them. No device identification is needed in the random access phase which significantly reduces the signalling overhead. The proposed scheme is analyzed and the maximum number of MTC devices that can be supported in a resource block is characterized as a function of the message length, number of available resources, and the number of preambles. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can effectively support a massive number of MTC devices for a limited number of available resources, when the message size is small.