Sloppy-slotted ALOHA

Abstract

Random access signaling, which allows slotted packets to spill over into adjacent slots, is investigated. It is shown that sloppy-slotted ALOHA can always provide higher throughput than conventional slotted ALOHA. The degree of improvement depends on the timing error distribution. Throughput performance is presented for Gaussian timing error distributions, modified to include timing error corrections. A general channel capacity lower bound, independent of the specific timing error distribution, is also presented.