Acquisition dependent random access for connectionless CDMA systems

We consider connectionless packet switched CDMA systems where all users have to share a common bandwidth and signature sequence on a contention basis. Multiple access is achieved by the simultaneous acquisition of different users' spread spectrum transmissions. The throughput of a pure random access system of this kind suffers from acquisition errors and timing mismatches of the active users as well as instability issues. We consider schemes that use information available at the physical layer, i.e., at the output of the multiuser access detector (MUAD) designed for this random access system, to improve and stabilize the throughput. We consider timing randomization, pseudo-Bayesian stabilization and collision resolution algorithms and report the corresponding numerical results.