Optimized Frameless ALOHA for Cooperative Base Stations With Overlapped Coverage Areas

Herein, we consider the problem of cooperative multi-access in the presence of overlapped coverage areas. Assuming a frameless ALOHA transmission scheme, we derive exact analytical throughput expressions for throughput in the aforementioned scenarios as a function of the frame length of the system and for arbitrary average numbers of users transmitting in each slot (target degree). After obtaining these original expressions, we then formulate a utility function whose maximization (obtained, e.g., through genetic algorithms) yields unequal and optimum target degrees to be employed by users in each group in order to maximize the peak throughput of the whole system while satisfying a given prescribed outage. A comparison of the resulting cooperative multiple base station (BS) multi-access scheme against optimized single-BS frameless ALOHA systems—which presume the perfect isolation of users at each BS and an equal optimum target degree for all users—indicates a significant gain in overall throughput, thereby revealing that a “multi-access diversity gain” can be reaped by allowing groups of users from different BSs to overlap.