Distributed probabilistic medium access with multipacket reception and Markovian traffic

Enabling multipacket reception (MPR) at the physical layer is a promising way to achieve higher bandwidth efficiency while reducing the complexity of the medium access control layer in distributed wireless networks. We study distributed probabilistic access where transmitting nodes access the shared wireless medium with a probability based on the node’s information about the aggregate traffic carried by the network. We model bursty traffic by rate-controlled two-state Markov sources and introduce a parameter that describes the “burstiness” level of the offered traffic. A throughput-optimal medium access strategy utilizing limited feedback is then described and its performance is examined for traffic with different levels of burstiness. It is shown that the bursty nature of the traffic in data networks allows for improvement of the bandwidth efficiency. Bounds on the system throughput are proposed and the queuing delay is analyzed.