An upper bound on the average throughput of opportunistic transmission in a multiple-access fading channel

This letter considers a multiple-access fading channel with opportunistic transmission of the users, i.e., only the user with the highest received power is allowed to transmit at a certain time slot. The transmit power randomization, independent of the channel estimates, is used in order to increase the fading rate, decrease the latency, and shape the distribution of the received powers. We derive the optimal distribution of the received powers that maximizes the throughput of the system, and measure possible gains compared with the long-term average throughput of the opportunistic transmission in a Rayleigh fading channel. The issue of unequal fading distributions of different users is also addressed.