Ber Analysis of a Cooperative Random Access Protocol in Rayleigh Fading Channels

A random access protocol for wireless networks was recently proposed that via cooperation of network nodes can resolve collisions and thus achieve high throughput. In this paper, we provide analytical expressions for the Bit-Error-Rate (BER) performance of that scheme in a Rayleigh flat fading scenario. Our analysis indicates that the spatial diversity introduced by user cooperation enables lower BER than non-cooperative protocols that avoid collisions, such as ALOHA or TDMA. The BER performance shows that the cooperative random access protocol is best suited for variable rate traffic. The analytical results are validated via simulations.