Mobile packet radio networks: State-of-the-art

MUCH WORK HAS been done in the areas of packet switching, packet radio, and random communication channels. However, efforts combining these areas are not as plentiful. There are several reasons for this. One reason is, the packet communications area is relatively young. Much of the research into packet communications has been accomplished by computer scientists rather then communications engineers, with a resulting emphasis on architecture, protocols, software, and so on. Even the development of packet radio has not fostered extensive examination of link effects on system performances. The UHF line-of-sight links and SHF satellite links have been assumed to be perfect with packet collisions as the dominant error source, which is a good assumption under normal circumstances. However, abnormal circumstances including ionospheric scintillations and multipath fading are another source of error on degraded packet radio links, which characterize Mobile Packet Radio Networks (MPRNET). In this paper we define and discuss Mobile Packet Radio Networks and presend their channel characteristics. The performance avaluation of some channel access protocols for a Mobile Packet Radio Network link, which is a typical example of a degraded packet radio channel, is descirbed.