Performance evaluation of a protocol for packet radio network in mobile computer communications

The need to provide computer network access to mobile terminals and computer communications in the mobile environment has stimulated and motivated the current developments in this area. Packet radio technology has developed over the past decade in response to the need for real-time, interactive communications among mobile users and shared computer resources. In computer communication systems we have a great need for sharing expensive resources among a collection of high peak-to-average (i.e., bursty) users. Packet radio networks provide an effective way to interconnect fixed and mobile resources. The results of an attempt to study the performance of the mobile packet radio network for computer communications over degraded channels are presented. We develop a model under fading conditions and derive a protocol for evaluating the performance of the mobile packet radio network (MPRNET) in terms of the packet error rate, packet delay, throughput and average number of retransmitted packets per cycle. The analytical results are presented and numerical examples are given to illustrate the behavior of these performance criteria as a function of packet transmission rate, packets transmitted per cycle, packet size, and vehicle speed with the help of appropriate plots.