Performance comparison of a slotted ALOHA DS/SSMA network and a multichannel narrow-band slotted ALOHA network

Throughput, delay, and stability for two slotted ALOHA packet radio systems are compared. One system is a slotted direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple-access (DS/SSMA) network where each user employs a newly chosen random signature sequence for each bit in a transmitted packet. The other system is a multiple-channel slotted narrow-band ALOHA network where each packet is transmitted over a randomly selected channel. Accurate packet success probabilities for the code-division multiple-access (CDMA) system are computed using an improved Gaussian approximation technique which accounts for bit-to-bit error dependencies. Average throughput and delay results are obtained for the multiple-channel slotted ALOHA system and CDMA systems with block error correction. The first exit time (FET) is computed for both systems and used as a measure of the network stability. The CDMA system is shown to have better performance than the multiple-channel ALOHA system in all three areas. Index Terms - Access protocols, code-division multiaccess, packet radio, pseudonoise coded communication, stability.