Average Age of Information of Irregular Repetition Slotted ALOHA

Flanking traditional metrics such as throughput and reliability, age of information (AoI) is emerging as a fundamental tool to capture the performance of IoT systems. In this context, we focus on a setup in which a large number of nodes attempt delivery of time-stamped updates to a common destination over a shared channel, and investigate the ability of different grant-free access strategies to maintain fresh information at the receiver. Specifically, we derive for the first time an exact closed-form expression of the average AoI achieved by irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA), and compare its performance to that of a slotted ALOHA approach. Our analysis reveals the potential of modern random access schemes, and pinpoints some fundamental trade-offs, providing useful hints for proper system design.