Prof. Dr.-Ing Jochen H.

Schiller
Inst. of Computer Science
Freie Universität Berlin
Germany

Mobile Communications
Chapter 3: Medium Access

Motivation
SDMA, FDMA, TDMA, CDMA
Aloha, reservation schemes
Collision avoidance, MACA
Polling
Comparison

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.1

Motivation
Can we apply media access methods from fixed networks?

Example CSMA/CD
- Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection
- send as soon as the medium is free, listen into the medium if a collision occurs (legacy method in IEEE 802.3)

Problems in wireless networks

- signal strength decreases proportional to (at least) the square of the distance
- the sender would apply CS and CD, but the collisions happen at the receiver
- it might be the case that a sender cannot “hear” the collision, i.e., CD does not work
- furthermore, CS might not work if, e.g., a terminal is “hidden”

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.2

Problem of CSMA/CD in wireless communication

signal strength

collision

threshold

noise

sender A receiver B sender C

signal ok
signal ok

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.3

Motivation - hidden and exposed terminals
Hidden terminals
- A sends to B, C cannot receive A
- C wants to send to B, C senses a “free” medium (CS fails)
- collision at B, A cannot receive the collision (CD fails)
- A is “hidden” for C

A B C
Exposed terminals
- B sends to A, C wants to send to another terminal (not A or B)
- C has to wait, CS signals a medium in use
- but A is outside the radio range of C, therefore waiting is not necessary
- C is “exposed” to B

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.4

Motivation - near and far terminals
Terminals A and B send, C receives
- signal strength decreases proportional to the square of the distance
- the signal of terminal B therefore drowns out A’s signal
- C cannot receive A

A B C

If C for example was an arbiter for sending rights, terminal B would drown out terminal A already on
the physical layer

Also severe problem for CDMA-networks - precise power control needed!

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.5

Access methods SDMA/FDMA/TDMA
SDMA (Space Division Multiple Access)
- segment space into sectors, use directed antennas
- cell structure

FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access)

- assign a certain frequency to a transmission channel between a sender and a receiver
- permanent (e.g., radio broadcast), slow hopping (e.g., GSM), fast hopping (FHSS, Frequency Hopping Spread
Spectrum)

TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)

- assign the fixed sending frequency to a transmission channel between a sender and a receiver for a certain
amount of time

PDMA (Polarization Division Multiple Access)

- assign a certain polarization to a transmission channel using, e.g. specialized antennas

The multiplexing schemes presented in chapter 2 are now used to control medium access!
- multiplexing scheme plus algorithm  Multiple Access method

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.6

FDD/FDMA - general scheme, example GSM
FDM used twice
- FDD (Frequency Division Duplex)
- separation of the direction (uplink/downlink) f
using different frequencies 960 MHz 124
- FDMA
- separation of different channels
using different frequencies 1 200 kHz
935.2 MHz
20 MHz
915 MHz 124

1
890.2 MHz
t

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.7

OFDMA – Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access
Use OFDM for multiple access, i.e. assign sub-carriers to individual users for a certain time
- can be seen as combination of FDM and TDM
- OFDM uses FDM with “orthogonal” carriers, i.e. multiple closely spaced subcarrier signals with overlapping
spectra are transmitted to carry data in parallel (See e.g. DVB, DAB+, DSL, IEEE 802.11a, …)
- used in e.g. IEEE 802.11ax, LTE, 5G New Radio
pilot subcarrier spacing

Advantages
- high flexibility (data rates, frequencies, QoS)
- can fill white spaces (see CR)
- good robustness wrt. fading and interference
- shorter/constant delay

Disadvantages
- more complex electronics with FFT, FEC
-26 -21 -7 -1 1 7 21 26 subcarrier
- frequency-selective fading if few subcarriers used
channel center frequency number
- co-channel interference from neighboring cells

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.8

TDD/TDMA - general scheme, example DECT
TDM used twice
- TDD (Frequency Division Duplex)
- separation of the direction (uplink/downlink)
using different time periods
- TDMA
- separation of different channels
417 µs
using different time-slots
1 2 3 11 12 1 2 3 11 12
Please note! t
- other combinations can also make sense downlink uplink
- TDD, TDMA, FDM: WLANs following 802.11 offering
several channels, up- and downlink on same channel, users
separated in time
- FDD, TDMA: GSM when looking at users on a certain channel,
up- and downlink separated in frequency, users separated in time
-…

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.9

Questions & Tasks
- What is the main physical reason for the failure of many MAC schemes known from wired networks? What is
done in wired networks to avoid this effect?
- What is the basic prerequisite for applying FDMA? How does this factor increase complexity compared to
TDMA systems?
- Who is responsible for MAC if we consider the whole frequency spectrum as presented in chapter 1?
- Considering duplex channels, what are alternatives for implementation in wireless networks? What about typical
wired networks?
- Assume all stations can hear all other stations. One station wants to transmit and senses the carrier idle. Why
can a collision still occur after the start of transmission?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.10

Aloha/slotted aloha
Mechanism
- random, distributed (no central arbiter), time-multiplex
- Slotted Aloha additionally uses time-slots, sending must always start at slot boundaries

Aloha collision

sender A
sender B
sender C
t
Slotted Aloha collision

sender A
sender B
sender C
t

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.11

DAMA - Demand Assigned Multiple Access
Channel efficiency only 18% for Aloha, 36% for Slotted Aloha
- assuming Poisson distribution for packet arrival and packet length

Reservation can increase efficiency to 80%

- a sender reserves a future time-slot
- sending within this reserved time-slot is possible without collision
- reservation also causes higher delays
- typical scheme for satellite links

Examples for reservation algorithms:

- Explicit Reservation according to Roberts (Reservation-ALOHA)
- Implicit Reservation (PRMA)
- Reservation-TDMA

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.12

Access method DAMA: Explicit Reservation
Explicit Reservation (Reservation Aloha):
- two modes:
- ALOHA mode for reservation:
competition for small reservation slots, collisions possible
- reserved mode for data transmission within successful reserved slots (no collisions possible)
- it is important for all stations to keep the reservation list consistent at any point in time and, therefore, all
stations have to synchronize from time to time

collision

t
Aloha reserved Aloha reserved Aloha reserved Aloha

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.13

Access method DAMA: PRMA
Implicit reservation (PRMA - Packet Reservation MA):
- a certain number of slots form a frame, frames are repeated
- stations compete for empty slots according to the slotted aloha principle
- once a station reserves a slot successfully, this slot is automatically assigned to this station in all following
frames as long as the station has data to send
- competition for this slots starts again as soon as the slot was empty in the last frame

reservation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 time-slot
ACDABA-F
frame1 A C D A B A F
ACDABA-F
frame2 A C A B A
AC-ABAF-
frame3 A B A F collision at
A---BAFD reservation
frame4 A B A F D attempts
ACEEBAFD
frame5 A C E E B A F D
t

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.14

Access method DAMA: Reservation-TDMA
Reservation Time Division Multiple Access
- every frame consists of N mini-slots and x data-slots
- every station has its own mini-slot and can reserve up to k data-slots using this mini-slot (i.e. x = N * k).
- other stations can send data in unused data-slots according to a round-robin sending scheme (best-effort traffic)

e.g. N=6, k=2

N mini-slots N * k data-slots

reservations other stations can use free data-slots

for data-slots based on a round-robin scheme

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.15

MACA - collision avoidance
MACA (Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) uses short signaling packets for collision avoidance
- RTS (request to send): a sender request the right to send from a receiver with a short RTS packet before it
sends a data packet
- CTS (clear to send): the receiver grants the right to send as soon as it is ready to receive

Signaling packets contain

- sender address
- receiver address
- packet size

Variants of this method can be found in IEEE802.11 as DFWMAC (Distributed Foundation Wireless MAC)

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.16

MACA examples
MACA avoids the problem of hidden terminals
- A and C want to
send to B
- A sends RTS first
- C waits after receiving RTS
CTS from B CTS CTS
A B C

MACA avoids the problem of exposed terminals

- B wants to send to A, C
to another terminal
- now C does not have
to wait for it, cannot RTS RTS
receive CTS from A
CTS
A B C

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.17

Polling mechanisms
If one terminal can be heard by all others, this “central” terminal (a.k.a. base station) can poll all other terminals
according to a certain scheme
- now all schemes known from fixed networks can be used (typical mainframe - terminal scenario)

Example: Randomly Addressed Polling

- base station signals readiness to all mobile terminals
- terminals ready to send can now transmit a random number without collision with the help of CDMA or FDMA
(the random number can be seen as dynamic address)
- the base station now chooses one address for polling from the list of all random numbers (collision if two
terminals choose the same address)
- the base station acknowledges correct packets and continues polling the next terminal
- this cycle starts again after polling all terminals of the list

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.18

ISMA (Inhibit Sense Multiple Access)
Current state of the medium is signaled via a “busy tone”
- the base station signals on the downlink (base station to terminals) if the medium is free or not
- terminals must not send if the medium is busy
- terminals can access the medium as soon as the busy tone stops
- the base station signals collisions and successful transmissions via the busy tone and acknowledgements,
respectively (media access is not coordinated within this approach)
- classical mechanism used, e.g., for CDPD (USA, integrated into AMPS)

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.19

Questions & Tasks
- Recall the problem of hidden and exposed terminals. What happens in the case of such terminals if Aloha,
slotted Aloha, reservation Aloha, or MACA is used?
- What are the advantages of a fixed TDM pattern compared to random, demand driven TDM? Compare the
efficiency in the case of several connections with fixed data rates or in the case of varying data rates. Now
explain why traditional mobile phone systems use fixed patterns, while computer networks generally use
random patterns. The major part of data being transmitted is computer-generated data. How has this fact
changed mobile phone systems?
- What are benefits of reservation schemes? How are collisions avoided during data transmission, why is the
probability of collisions lower compared to classical Aloha? What are disadvantages of reservation schemes?
- How can MACA still fail in case of hidden/exposed terminals? Think of mobile stations and changing
transmission characteristics.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.20

Access method CDMA
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
- all terminals send on the same frequency probably at the same time and can use the whole bandwidth of the
transmission channel
- each sender has a unique random number, the sender XORs the signal with this random number
- the receiver can “tune” into this signal if it knows the pseudo random number, tuning is done via a correlation
function

Disadvantages:
- higher complexity of a receiver (receiver cannot just listen into the medium and start receiving if there is a
signal)
- all signals should have the same strength at a receiver

Advantages:
- all terminals can use the same frequency, no planning needed
- huge code space (e.g. 232) compared to frequency space
- interferences (e.g. white noise) is not coded
- forward error correction and encryption can be easily integrated
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.21
CDMA in theory (very simplified)
Sender A
- sends Ad = 1, key Ak = 010011 (assign: “0”= -1, “1”= +1)
- sending signal As = Ad * Ak = (-1, +1, -1, -1, +1, +1)

Sender B
- sends Bd = 0, key Bk = 110101 (assign: “0”= -1, “1”= +1)
- sending signal Bs = Bd * Bk = (-1, -1, +1, -1, +1, -1)

Both signals superimpose in space

- interference neglected (noise etc.)
- As + Bs = (-2, 0, 0, -2, +2, 0)

Receiver wants to receive signal from sender A

- apply key Ak bitwise (inner product)
- Ae = (-2, 0, 0, -2, +2, 0) • Ak = 2 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 2 + 0 = 6
- result greater than 0, therefore, original bit was “1”
- receiving B
- Be = (-2, 0, 0, -2, +2, 0) • Bk = -2 + 0 + 0 - 2 - 2 + 0 = -6, i.e. “0”

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.22

CDMA on signal level I (still pretty simplified)

data A
1 0 1 Ad

key A
key
0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 Ak
sequence A
data ⊕ key 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0

signal A
As

Real systems use much longer keys resulting in a larger distance

between single code words in code space.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.23

CDMA on signal level II
signal A As

data B 1 0 0 Bd

key B
key 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 Bk
sequence B
1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1
data ⊕ key

Bs
signal B

As + B s

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.24

CDMA on signal level III
data A
1 0 1 Ad

As + Bs

Ak

(As + Bs)
* Ak

integrator
output
comparator 1 0 1
output

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.25

CDMA on signal level IV
data B
1 0 0 Bd

As + Bs

Bk

(As + Bs)
* Bk

integrator
output
comparator 1 0 0
output

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.26

CDMA on signal level V

As + B s

wrong
key K

(As + Bs)
*K

integrator
output
comparator
output (0) (0) ?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.27

SAMA - Spread Aloha Multiple Access
Aloha has only a very low efficiency, CDMA needs complex receivers to be able to receive different senders with
individual codes at the same time
Idea: use spread spectrum with only one single code (chipping sequence) for spreading for all senders accessing
according to aloha

collision

sender A 1 0 1 narrow
sender B 0 1 1 band
send for a
shorter period
with higher power
spread the signal e.g. using the chipping sequence 110101 („CDMA without CD“)

Problem: find a chipping sequence with good characteristics

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.28

Comparison SDMA/TDMA/FDMA/CDMA

Approach SDMA TDMA FDMA CDMA

Idea segment space into segment sending time into segment the frequency spread the spectrum
cells/sectors disjoint time-slots, band into disjoint sub- using orthogonal codes
demand driven or fixed bands
patterns
Terminals only one terminal can all terminals are active for every terminal has its all terminals can be
be active in one short periods of time on own frequency, active at the same place
cell/one sector the same frequency uninterrupted at the same moment,
uninterrupted
Signal cell structure, directed synchronization in the filtering in the code plus special
separation antennas time domain frequency domain receivers
Advantages very simple, increases established, fully digital, simple, established, flexible, less frequency
capacity per km² flexible robust planning needed, soft
handover
Disadvantages inflexible, antennas guard space needed inflexible, frequencies complex receivers,
typically fixed (multipath propagation), are a scarce resource needs more complicated
synchronization difficult power control for senders
Comment only in combination standard in fixed typically combined with higher complexity,
with TDMA, FDMA or networks, together with TDMA (frequency lowered expectations;
CDMA useful FDMA/SDMA used in hopping patterns) and integrated with
many mobile networks SDMA (frequency TDMA/FDMA
reuse), flexible OFDMA

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.29

Questions & Tasks
- How does the near/far effect influence TDMA systems? What happens in CDMA systems? What are
countermeasures in TDMA systems, what about CDMA systems?
- Who performs the MAC algorithm for SDMA? What could be possible roles of mobile stations, base stations,
and planning from the network provider?
- Explain the term interference in the space, time, frequency, and code domain. What are countermeasures in
SDMA, TDMA, FDMA, and CDMA systems?
- Which of the MAC schemes can give hard guarantees related to bandwidth and access delay?
- How are guard spaces realised between users in CDMA?
- Redo the simple CDMA example, but now add random ‘noise’ to the transmitted signal (–2,0,0,–2,+2,0). Add,
for example, (1,–1,0,1,0,–1). In this case, what can the receiver detect for sender A and B respectively? Now
include the near/far problem. How does this complicate the situation? What would be possible
countermeasures?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen H. Schiller www.jochenschiller.de Mobile Communications 3.30