Lectures 13 & 14

Packet Multiple Access: The Aloha protocol

Eytan Modiano
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Eytan Modiano
Slide 1
 Multiple Access

• Shared Transmission Medium

– a receiver can hear multiple transmitters
– a transmitter can be heard by multiple receivers

• the major problem with multi-access is allocating the channel

between the users; the nodes do not know when the other nodes
have data to send
– Need to coordinate transmissions

Eytan Modiano
Slide 2
 Examples of Multiple Access Channels

• Local area networks (LANs)

– Traditional Ethernet
– Recent trend to non-multi-access LANs

• satellite channels

• Multi-drop telephone

• Wireless radio

• Medium Access Control (MAC)

MAC – Regulates access to channel
NET

DLC LLC • Logical Link Control (LLC)

– All other DLC functions
PHY
Eytan Modiano
Slide 3
 Approaches to Multiple Access

• Fixed Assignment (TDMA, FDMA, CDMA)

– each node is allocated a fixed fraction of bandwidth
– Equivalent to circuit switching
– very inefficient for low duty factor traffic

• Contention systems
– Polling

– Reservations and Scheduling

– Random Access

Eytan Modiano
Slide 4
 Aloha

Single receiver, many transmitters

Receiver
...

Transmitters

E.g., Satellite system, wireless

Eytan Modiano
Slide 5
 Slotted Aloha

• Time is divided into “slots” of one packet duration

– E.g., fixed size packets
• When a node has a packet to send, it waits until the start of the
next slot to send it
– Requires synchronization
• If no other nodes attempt transmission during that slot, the
transmission is successful
– Otherwise “collision”
– Collided packet are retransmitted after a random delay

1 2 3 4 5
Success Idle Collision Idle Success

Eytan Modiano
Slide 6
 Slotted Aloha Assumptions

• Poisson external arrivals

• No capture
– Packets involved in a collision are lost
– Capture models are also possible
• Immediate feedback
– Idle (0) , Success (1), Collision (e)
• If a new packet arrives during a slot, transmit in next slot
• If a transmission has a collision, node becomes backlogged
– while backlogged, transmit in each slot with probability qr until
successful

• Infinite nodes where each arriving packet arrives at a new node

– Equivalent to no buffering at a node (queue size = 1)
– Pessimistic assumption gives a lower bound on Aloha performance

Eytan Modiano
Slide 7
 Markov chain for slotted aloha

P03

P13
P34
0 1 2 3
P10

• state (n) of system is number of backlogged nodes.

pi,i-1 = prob. of one backlogged attempt and no new arrival

pi,i =prob. of one new arrival and no backlogged attempts or no

new arrival and no success

pi,i+1= prob of one new arrival and one or more backlogged attempts

pi,i+j = Prob. Of J new arrivals and one or more backlogged attempts

or J+1 new arrivals and no

backlogged attempts

• Steady state probabilities do not exists

– Backlog tends to infinity => system unstable
Eytan Modiano – More later
Slide 8
 slotted aloha

• let g(n) be the attempt rate (the expected number of packets

transmitted in a slot) in state n

g(n) = λ + nqr

• The number of attempted packets per slot in state n is

approximately a Poisson random variable of mean g(n)

– P (m attempts) = g(n)me-g(n)/m!
– P (idle) = probability of no attempts in a slot = e-g(n)
– p (success) = probability of one attempt in a slot = g(n)e-g(n)
– P (collision) = P (two or more attempts) = 1 - P(idle) - P(success)

Eytan Modiano
Slide 9
 Throughput of Slotted Aloha

• The throughput is the fraction of slots that contain a successful

transmission = P(success) = g(n)e-g(n)
– When system is stable throughput must also equal the external
arrival rate (λ)

e-1
Departure rate
g(n)e-g(n)

1
g(n)

– What value of g(n) d

g( n)e −g( n) = e −g( n) − g( n)e −g( n) = 0
maximizes throughput? dg( n)
⇒ g(n) = 1
– g(n) < 1 => too many idle slots
– g(n) > 1 => too many collisions
⇒ P( success) = g(n )e −g( n)
= 1/ e ≈ 0.36
– If g(n) can be kept close to 1, an external arrival rate of 1/e packets
Eytan Modiano
Slide 10 per slot can be sustained
 Instability of slotted aloha

• if backlog increases beyond unstable point (bad luck) then it tends

to increase without limit and the departure rate drops to 0

• Drift in state n, D(n) is the expected change in backlog over one

time slot
– D(n) = λ - P(success) = λ - g(n)e-g(n)

negative drift

Departure rate negative drift

-1
e
-G
Ge
Arrival rate
λ
positive
Stable drift
Unstable

positive
drift G=0 G=1
G = λ + nq
r
Eytan Modiano
Slide 11
 Stabilizing slotted aloha

• choosing qr small increases the backlog at which instability

occurs ( since g(n) = λ + nqr), but also increases delay (since mean
retry time is 1/qr)
• solution: estimate the backlog (n) from past feedback
– Given the backlog estimate, choose qr to keep g(n) = 1
Assume all arrivals are immediately backlogged
g(n) = nqr , P(success) = nqr (1-qr)n-1
To maximize P(success) choose qr = min{1,1/n}
– When the estimate of n is perfect:
idles occur with probability 1/e,
successes with 1/e, and
collisions with 1-2/e.
– When the estimate is too large, too many idle slots occur
– When the estimate is too small, too many collisions occur
• Nodes can use feedback information (0,1,e) to make estimates
– A good rule is increase the estimate of n on each collision, and to
decrease it on each idle slot or successful slot
note that the increase on a collision should be (e-2)-1 times as large as the
decrease on an idle slot
Eytan Modiano
Slide 12
 stabilized slotted aloha

• assume all arrivals are immediately backlogged

– g(n) = nqr = attempt rate
– p(success) = nqr (1-qr)n-1

for max throughput set g(n) = 1 => qr = min{1,1/n’}

where n’ is the estimate of n

– Let nk = estimate of backlog after kth slot

max {λ, nk+λ-1} idle or success

nk+1 =
nk+λ+(e-2)-1 collision

– Can be shown to be stable for λ < 1/e

Eytan Modiano
Slide 13
 TDM vs. slotted aloha

TDM, m=16
8
DELAY
TDM, m=8
4
ALOHA

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

ARRIVAL RATE

• Aloha achieves lower delays when arrival rates are low

• TDM results in very large delays with large number of users, while
Aloha is independent of the number of users

Eytan Modiano
Slide 14
 Pure (unslotted) Aloha

• New arrivals are transmitted immediately (no slots)

– No need for synchronization
– No need for fixed length packets

• A backlogged packet is retried after an exponentially distributed

random delay with some mean 1/x
• The total arrival process is a time varying Poisson process of rate
g(n) = λ + nx (n = backlog, 1/x = ave. time between retransmissions)

• Note that an attempt suffers a collision if the previous attempt is not

yet finished (ti-ti-1<1) or the next attempt starts too soon (ti+1-ti<1)

New Arrivals

τ τ
3 4

t1 t 2
t t t
3 4 5
Collision
Eytan Modiano
Slide 15 Retransmission
 Throughput of Unslotted Aloha

• An attempt is successful if the inter-attempt intervals on both

sides exceed 1 (for unit duration packets)
– P(success) = e-g(n) e-g(n) = e-2g(n)
– Throughput (success rate) = g(n) e-2g(n)

– For max throughput at g(n) = 1/2, Throughput = 1/2e ~ 0.18

– stabilization issues are similar to slotted aloha

– advantages of unslotted aloha are simplicity and possibility of

unequal length packets

Eytan Modiano
Slide 16
 Splitting Algorithms

• More efficient approach to resolving collisions

– Simple feedback (0,1,e)
– Basic idea: assume only two packets are involved in a collision
Suppose all other nodes remain quiet until collision is resolved, and
nodes in the collision each transmit with probability 1/2 until one is
successful

On the next slot after this success, the other node transmits

The expected number of slots for the first success is 2, so the expected
number of slots to transmit 2 packets is 3 slots

Throughput over the 3 slots = 2/3

– In practice above algorithm cannot really work

Cannot assume only two users involved in collision
Practical algorithm must allow for collisions involving unknown number
of users

Eytan Modiano
Slide 17
 Tree algorithms

• After a collision, all new arrivals and all backlogged packets not
in the collision wait
• Each colliding packet randomly joins either one of two groups
(Left and Right groups)
– Toss of a fair coin
– Left group transmits during next slot while Right group waits
If collision occurs Left group splits again (stack algorithm)
Right group waits until Left collision is resolved
– When Left group is done, right group transmits
(1,2,3,4)

Notice that after the idle slot,

collision collision between (2,3) was
success
sure to happen and could have
(1,2,3)
4 been avoided
collision
success
(2,3)
1

collision
Many variations and improvements
idle (2,3)
on the original tree splitting algorithm
success success
Eytan Modiano
Slide 18
2 3

 Throughput comparison

• stabilized pure aloha T = 0.184 = (1/(2e))

• stabilized slotted aloha T = 0.368 = (1/e)

• Basic tree algorithm T = 0.434

• Best known variation on tree algorithm T = 0.4878

• Upper bound on any collision resolution algorithm with (0,1,e)

feedback T <= 0.568

• TDM achieves throughputs up to 1 packet per slot, but the delay

increases linearly with the number of nodes

Eytan Modiano
Slide 19