Analysis of broadcast communication systems with acknowledgment considerations
Mohamed-Yehia Zakaria Elsanadidi · 1982
In broadcast random access communication, collision occurs when two or more transmissions overlap in time. After a transmission a node should have the knowledge of whether its attempt was successful so that it can decide its next action. Acknowledgments are necessary when nodes cannot monitor the channel and infer the result of their transmission on their own. In other environments such as cable broadcasting, the node is able to monitor the channel and, after some delay, can determine the outcome of its transmission attempt. Using stochastic models, we analyze the performance of broadcast mode communication systems. In particular we study the effect of acknowledgments on the performance of multihop networks. We show that priority must be assigned to acknowledgment traffic, and study several forms of assigning such priority. We also study the behavior of networks in which 'echo' acknowledgments are utilized. We use a simulator to study the behavior of a packet radio system in which nodes are not synchronized which is difficult to study analytically. Finally, we analyze the performance of a dynamic time window access protocol in a single hop environment where nodes can monitor the channel, detect success or collision on their own, and thus no acknowledgments are needed.