Generalised stop-and-wait protocol

Automatic-repeat-request (ARQ) protocols are widely used in digital communication systems for their high reliability and simple implementation. Of the various ARQ schemes, the stop-and-wait is the simplest in terms of structure, but it achieves low throughput values, even for high signal-to-noise ratios. In the Letter a generalised stop-and-wait protocol is proposed. In this protocol some consecutive messages are sent during a transmission cycle before each stop and waiting period. This protocol retains the implementation simplicity of the classical stop-and-wait scheme, but results in a significant improvement in throughput.