Packet error probabilities in frequency hopped spread spectrum packet radio networks-Memoryless frequency hopping patterns considered

In this paper we compute the packet error probability induced in a frequency hopped spread spectrum packet radio network. The frequency spectrum is divided into q frequency bins and the packets are divided into M bytes each. Every user in the network sends each of the M bytes of his packet at a frequency chosen among the q frequencies with equal probability, and independently of the frequencies chosen for other bytes (i.e. memoryless frequency-hopping patterns). Furthermore, statistically independent frequency hopping patterns correspond to different users in the network. We show that, although memoryless frequency hopping patterns are utilized, the byte errors at the receiver are not statistically independent" instead they exhibit a Markovian structure. We also compute the packet error probability induced when Reed-Solomon codes are used for the encoding of the packets.