Finite Length Performance of Random Slotted ALOHA Strategies

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the finite-length performance of IRSA protocols in wireless networks, using combinatorial methods and interference cancellation techniques to improve understanding of their reliability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel combinatorial approach based on matrix-occupancy theory to evaluate IRSA performance at finite lengths, validated by simulations.

Findings

The proposed method accurately predicts error probabilities.

IRSA schemes can achieve high throughput with effective interference cancellation.

Validation confirms the analytical approach's effectiveness.

Abstract

Multiple connected devices sharing common wireless resources might create interference if they access the channel simultaneously. Medium access control (MAC) protocols gener- ally regulate the access of the devices to the shared channel to limit signal interference. In particular, irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA) techniques can achieve high-throughput performance when interference cancellation methods are adopted to recover from collisions. In this work, we study the finite length performance for IRSA schemes by building on the analogy between successive interference cancellation and iterative belief- propagation on erasure channels. We use a novel combinatorial derivation based on the matrix-occupancy theory to compute the error probability and we validate our method with simulation results.