Packet Acquisition for Time-Frequency Hopped Asynchronous Random Multiple Access

Packet acquisition for a time-frequency hopped asynchronous random multiple access (RMA) system is investigated. A novel analytical approach to performance evaluation is provided, which enables the waveform designer to quickly evaluate the network performance as various waveform design and RMA protocol parameters and are chosen. The results show that the network throughput is estimated and upper-bounded by the acquisition performance. The performance evaluation procedure is broadly general, allowing for variations in waveform parameters, network topology, network population and population heterogeneity (in, e.g., rate, transmit power, and medium access behavior). To illustrate the accuracy of the analytical results, simulations are performed over a wide range of waveform, RMA protocol and network parameters.