Multiple-Access Capability of Synchronous FHSS Wireless Networks: An Analysis of the Effects of the Spacing Between Hopping Carriers

This paper presents a new analytical performance analysis of slow frequency-hopped synchronous spread-spectrum multiple-access (FHSS-MA) networks employing nonorthogonal binary frequency-shift keying (BFSK) and having arbitrary spacing between the hopping carriers. Taking into account the crosstalk due to the nonorthogonality of both hopping carriers and BFSK tones, and based on an accurate interference analysis, we derive new expressions for the average probability of error of a reference signal subjected to a number of similar signals in the additive white Gaussian noise Rayleigh-faded channel. These are used to investigate the effect of carrier and tone spacing on the spectral efficiency of an FHSS-MA network. It is shown that the spectral efficiency depends primarily on the shape of the employed pulses, in addition to both carrier and tone spacing. Numerical results show that rectangular pulses give higher spectral efficiency as compared with the half-sine pulses. Furthermore, orthogonal tone spacing is shown to be more efficient in the case of rectangular pulses, whereas half-sine pulses become more efficient with the nonorthogonal signaling.