We consider a frame-asynchronous coded slotted ALOHA (FA-CSA) system where users become active according to a Poisson random process. In contrast to standard frame-synchronous CSA (FS-CSA), users transmit a first replica of their message in the slot following their activation and other replicas uniformly at random in a number of subsequent slots. We derive the (approximate) density evolution that characterizes the asymptotic performance of FA-CSA when the frame length goes to infinity. We show that, if users can monitor the system before they start transmitting, a boundary-effect similar to that of spatially-coupled codes occurs, which greatly improves the decoding threshold as compared to FS-CSA. We also derive analytical approximations of the error floor (EF) in the finite frame length regime. We show that FA-CSA yields in general lower EF, better performance in the waterfall region, and lower average delay, as compared to FS-CSA.
We introduce Mini Slotted Threshold ALOHA (MiSTA), a slotted ALOHA modification designed to minimize the network-wide time average Age of Information (AoI). In MiSTA, sources whose ages are below a certain threshold stay silent. When a node with age above the threshold has data to send, it becomes active in the next time frame with a certain probability. The active node first transmits a short control sequence in a mini-slot ahead of actual data transmission, and if collision is sensed, it backs off with a certain probability. We derive the steady state distribution of the number of active sou…
We present a comprehensive steady-state analysis of threshold-ALOHA, a distributed age-aware modification of slotted ALOHA proposed in recent literature. In threshold-ALOHA, each terminal suspends its transmissions until the Age of Information (AoI) of the status update flow it is sending reaches a certain threshold $Γ$. Once the age exceeds $Γ$, the terminal attempts transmission with constant probability $τ$ in each slot, as in standard slotted ALOHA. We analyze the time-average expected AoI attained by this policy, and explore its scaling with network size, $n$. We derive the probability di…
An information-theoretic approach to irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA) is proposed. In contrast with previous works, in which IRSA analysis is conducted only based on quantities that are typical of collision models such as the traffic, the new approach also captures more fundamental quantities. Specifically, a suitable codebook construction for the adder channel model is adopted to establish a link with successive interference cancellation over the multi-packet reception channel. This perspective allows proving achievability and converse results for the average sum rate of IRSA multipl…
This letter analyzes a class of information freshness metrics for large IoT systems in which terminals employ slotted ALOHA to access a common channel. Considering a Gilbert- Elliot channel model, information freshness is evaluated through a penalty function that follows a power law of the time elapsed since the last received update, in contrast with the linear growth of age of information. By means of a signal flow graph analysis of Markov processes, we provide exact closed form expressions for the average penalty and for the peak penalty violation probability.
The Age of Incorrect Information (AoII) is a metric that can combine the freshness of the information available to a gateway in an Internet of Things (IoT) network with the accuracy of that information. As such, minimizing the AoII can allow the operators of IoT systems to have a more precise and up-to-date picture of the environment in which the sensors are deployed. However, most IoT systems do not allow for centralized scheduling or explicit coordination, as sensors need to be extremely simple and consume as little power as possible. Finding a decentralized policy to minimize the AoII can b…
We consider a massive Internet of Things (IoT) scenario where indoor IoT devices access the network via optical wireless communication (OWC) IoT systems that relay data via a backhaul radio frequency (RF) low-power wide-area network (LP WAN). We propose a novel two-tier multi-rate Slotted ALOHA (SA) system model to design and analyse such hybrid OWC/RF networks. For a particular hybrid OWC/RF setup, we present an in-depth numerical investigation that provides insights into the proposed two-tier multi-rate hybrid OWC/RF SA system design.
We propose an irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA) based random-access protocol for the binary adder channel (BAC). The BAC captures important physical-layer concepts, such as packet generation, per-slot decoding, and information rate, which are neglected in the commonly considered collision channel model. We divide a frame into slots and let users generate a packet, to be transmitted over a slot, from a given codebook. In a state-of-the-art scheme proposed by Paolini et al. (2022), the codebook is constructed as the parity-check matrix of a BCH code. Here, we construct the codebook from …
Associated with multi-packet reception at the access point, irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA) holds a great potential in improving the access capacity of massive machine type communication systems. Considering the time-frequency resource efficiency, K = 2 (multi-packet reception capability) may be the most suitable scheme for scenarios that allow smaller resource efficiency in exchange for greater throughput. In this paper, we analytically derive an optimal transmission probability distribution for IRSA with K = 2, which achieves a significant higher load threshold than the existing be…
In this paper, the problem of using uncoordinated multiple access (UMA) to serve a massive amount of heterogeneous users is investigated. Leveraging the heterogeneity, we propose a novel UMA protocol, called iterative collision resolution for slotted ALOHA (IRSA) with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), to improve the conventional IRSA. In addition to the inter-slot successive interference cancellation (SIC) technique used in existing IRSA-based schemes, the proposed protocol further employs the intra-slot SIC technique that enables collision resolution for certain configurations of collide…
The present paper focuses on an IoT setting in which a large number of devices generate time-stamped updates addressed to a common gateway. Medium access is regulated following a grant-free approach, and the system aims at maintaining an up-to-date knowledge at the receiver, measured through the average network age of information (AoI). In this context, we propose a variation of the irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA) protocol. The scheme, referred to as age-threshold IRSA (AT-IRSA), leverages feedback provided by the receiver to admit to the channel only devices whose AoI exceeds a dyna…
We consider a relay-aided Slotted ALOHA solution for uplink random access for an Optical Wireless Communications (OWC)-based Internet of Things (IoT). The first phase of uplink, the one between IoT devices and the relays, is realized using indoor OWC, while the second phase, between the relays and a base station, represents the long-range RF transmission based on low-power wide area network such as LoRaWAN and occurs outdoors. The throughput performance dependence on the OWC and RF channel conditions is observed. The behavior of the performance gain due to adding relays is highlighted and inve…
On a Generalized Foster-Lyapunov Type Criterion for the Stability of Multidimensional Markov chains with Applications to the Slotted-Aloha Protocol with Finite Number of Queues
Irregular repetition slotted aloha (IRSA) is a massive random access protocol which can be used to serve a large number of users while achieving a packet loss rate (PLR) close to zero. However, if the number of users is too high, then the system is interference limited and the PLR is close to one. In this paper, we propose a variant of IRSA in the interference limited regime, namely Censored-IRSA (C-IRSA), wherein users with poor channel states censor themselves from transmitting their packets. We theoretically analyze the throughput performance of C-IRSA via density evolution. Using this, we …
We consider ALOHA and slotted ALOHA protocols as medium access rules for a multi-channel message delivery system. Users decide randomly and independently with a minimal amount of knowledge about the system at random times to make a message emission attempt. We consider the two cases that the system has a fixed number of independent available channels, and that interference constraints make the delivery of too many messages at a time impossible. We derive probabilistic formulas for the most important quantities like the number of successfully delivered messages and the number of emission attemp…