Performance Analysis of Multiuser Diversity with Capture for Wireless Networks

With the aid of rate adaptation, multiuser diversity can be exploited in wireless networks by allowing the mobile user with the best channel to use the channel. However, polling mobile stations to obtain channel state information in large networks can result in large overhead, outweighing the multiuser diversity gain. Multiuser Diversity with Capture (MDC) is a wireless medium access control protocol that explicitly employs the capture effect to overcome the overhead problem. In this paper, we analyse the goodput performance of MDC over Rayleigh fading channels and compare it with the Medium Access Diversity (MAD) scheme proposed in the literature. Our results show that MDC is effective in networks with radio receivers possessing reasonably good capture properties and in networks where the number of mobile stations is reasonably large.