Packet Radio Performance Over Slow Rayleigh Fading Channels

Expressions for the throughput and average packet delay for a Pure-ALOHA single-hop packet radio system operating in slow Rayleigh fading are derived. For noncoherent frequency-shift-keying (NCFSK), an exact closed form expression is presented. For coherent phase-shift-keying (CPSK) an excellent approximation for large packet sizes is derived. This approximation technique is valid in general for other modulation schemes and for other fading channel statistical characterizations. The packet length which maximizes the useful data throughput in slow Rayleigh fading is found. The results of this investigation indicate that a packet radio system can be designed with a modest link margin for fading and achieve identical throughput performance over a nonfading channel and a fading channel with only a small increase in average packet delay for the fading channel.