Stability and Performance of the R-Aloha Packet Broadcast System

The dynamic behavior of the R-ALOHA packet broadcast system with multipacket messages is analyzed in this paper. It is assumed that each user handles one message at a time and the number of packets in a message is geometrically distributed. A Markovian model of the system is first formulated which explicitly contains the influence of the propagation delay of the broadcast channel. An approximate technique called equilibrium point analysis (EPA) is utilized to analyze the multidimensional Markov chain. The system stability behavior and the throughput-average message delay performance are demonstrated by the EPA. Numerical results from both analysis and simulation are given to assess the accuracy of the analytic results. Applying the analytic results to the slotted ALOHA with single packet messages, we prove mathematically that a method by Kleinrock and Lam for taking into account the influence of the propagation delay is an excellent approximation.