Optimal Slotted ALOHA under Delivery Deadline Constraint for Multiple-Packet Reception

Abstract: This paper considers the slotted ALOHA protocol in a communication channel shared by N users. It is assumed that the channel has the multiple-packet reception (MPR) capability that allows the correct reception of up to M ($1 \leq M < N$) time-overlapping packets. To evaluate the reliability in the scenario that a packet needs to be transmitted within a strict delivery deadline D ($D \geq 1$) (in unit of slot) since its arrival at the head of queue, we consider the successful delivery probability (SDP) of a packet as performance metric of interest. We derive the optimal transmission probability that maximizes the SDP for any $1 \leq M < N$ and any $D \geq 1$, and show it can be computed by a fixed-point iteration. In particular, the case for D = 1 (i.e., throughput maximization) is first completely addressed in this paper. Based on these theoretical results, for real-life scenarios where N may be unknown and changing, we develop a distributed algorithm that enables each user to tune its transmission probability at runtime according to the estimate of N. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is effective in dynamic scenarios, with near-optimal performance.