Throughput of strongly interfering slow frequency-hopping networks

With the increasing use of short-range wireless devices for high-data-rate communication in the shared frequency bands, the level of interference can be expected to increase. The ability to estimate the performance degradation of these devices due to increasing interference is, therefore, important. In this paper, the throughput of devices that perform frequency hops after each transmitted packet in order to achieve diversity is investigated. The system model allows for an analysis of systems where packets of variable durations are used, and the throughput derivation is based on the assumption that collisions result in a total loss of the data in the colliding packets. The resulting expression for the throughput is given as a function of the number of frequency channels used for frequency hopping, the number of interfering networks, the durations of the packet types available, and the probability of networks selecting a certain packet type for transmission. An approximation of the exact expression for the throughput is also derived, and the results are applied to an example system consisting of Bluetooth piconets.